“Look there,” he said. “A cause sufficient to make many a bold man, circumstanced as I am, tremble,” he replied, in a slow, determined tone, pointing, as he spoke, towards the north-west. “Do you see yonder stranger, which has just hove in sight?”
“I see the sails of a ship above the horizon. But what harm can she do to us?” said Nina. “If she sees us, and takes us on board, she will carry us to some land, whence we may proceed to Italy.”
“You forget that, to the hunted pirate, all men are enemies,” answered Zappa, bitterly. “I could not venture on board a merchant-vessel, without the risk of being recognised, and, if my eyes deceive me not, yonder craft is no peaceful trader, but rather a British ship of war.”
“Heaven forbid it,” exclaimed Nina. “But should she be, still the raft is so low in the water, that, at the distance we are off from her, we surely shall scarcely be recognised.”
“I wish that I could think so,” said Zappa; “but on board that craft there are numerous sharp eyes on the look out, and our sail may long since have been seen from her mast-heads. She is also, I well know, one of the very ships sent in chase of the Sea Hawk, and will not allow us to pass unquestioned.”
“Even should she be an enemy, are we not so near the shore that you may easily escape thither?” asked Nina, who was unwilling to acknowledge, even to herself, the danger to which Zappa was exposed.
“She is standing this way, and, by the manner in which her sails rise from the water, she is making rapid progress towards us,” murmured the pirate, speaking to himself rather than answering Nina’s question. “Ah! I know her now; and long ere we can reach the shore she will be upon us. Well, we will strive to the last. Fate may, for this once, favour us. The wind may fail, or, by chance, we may not be seen; and if, when I have done all that I can to escape, rather than be captured, to hang alongside those wretches I saw not long ago on the fortifications of Malta, I have but the brave man’s last resource to fly to, and the wave on which I have so long loved to float shall be my grave.”
Ada Garden had heard the previous part of the conversation with feelings between hope and fear. She trusted that the ship in sight was a friend; and yet she could not tell what effect it might have on the pirates when they discovered that such was the case. She deeply regretted, also, the fate which she feared might await Zappa, were he captured, notwithstanding the efforts she purposed to make to preserve his life, more certainly for Nina’s sake than for his own; yet she was grateful to him for the forbearance he had shown towards her.
It was an anxious time for her—indeed, the joy and satisfaction she would otherwise have felt at the thoughts of her own deliverance was much alloyed by grief for poor Nina, who, at the moment of realising her fondest hopes of reclaiming her husband, found them rudely torn from her.
The crew had not yet observed the stranger, as they were occupied at the oars, or tending the sail, and Zappa was unwilling to alarm them before it was necessary; for he knew their caitiff nature, and though ferocious enough when they were sure of victory, he could not now depend on their courage, and he thought that they were very likely, when they saw that all chance of escape was gone, to quit their oars, and refuse to exert themselves further.