He clasped her round the waist, and seizing the stay of the mast, leaped with her on board. Paolo stood irresolute a moment. He looked at Ada, she turned her face from him. He saw his sister among the pirates. He recollected his devoted love for her, and the sacrifice she had already made, besides which he felt the hopelessness of his passion, and just as the raft was being cast off, he followed her on board the mistico.
The next moment Ada Garden found herself the only occupant of the raft, drifting on the face of the water.
Chapter Forty.
The Ione had in vain chased the Sea Hawk. She had examined every island in her course, and searched in every bay and nook, and behind every rock and headland, but the pirate still evaded her, till captain, officers, and men were almost worn out with their labours. Fleetwood, it may be supposed, did not save himself, and it could scarcely be expected that he should allow his officers to do so; in truth, however, every man and boy on board was almost as eager in the pursuit as he was, and fatiguing as it was, never was any duty performed more willingly, though, as they could relieve each other, they were not so much exhausted with fatigue. Night and day he was on deck, and it was with difficulty he could be persuaded to take any food or rest, expecting, as he did, that the next few hours would place the Sea Hawk in his power. Thus day after day passed away. Sometimes a sail hove in sight, and they stood after her in chase, but only to come up with her to find that she was some English trader to the Bosphorus, or Greek man-of-war, of perhaps little less doubtful character than the Sea Hawk herself. The inhabitants of the islands either knew nothing about her, or would give no information, nor could any clue be obtained from any craft they fell in with; so at last Captain Fleetwood resolved to return south again, keeping close along by the Greek coast, to examine the dense group of islands and islets of which I have spoken.
The wind had been light all night, and the Ione had made little progress; but as the morning broke a breeze sprang up from the northward, and she hauled in a little to fetch the easternmost of the islands, among which she was about to cruise. A Greek pilot had been taken on board on the Zone’s first entering the Archipelago. He was a clever old fellow, and he undertook to carry the ship in safety through all the dangers with which she would be surrounded. Zappa had once plundered a ship of which he had charge, and he was doubly anxious to get hold of him. All the officers were on deck with telescopes in hand, sweeping the horizon, while the captain, as was his custom every hour, had just gone aloft with his glass to take a wider sweep, and to assure himself, with his own eyes, whether any sail was or was not in sight.
“Poor fellow,” said Linton, “I am afraid the captain will never live through it. He is worn almost to a skeleton, and he looks as if a fever were consuming him. Should anything dreadful have occurred, I am afraid it will kill him when he hears of it.”
“I fear so too, and it would be the last way I should wish to gain my commission,” said Saltwell, with much feeling. “I wish to Heaven we could fall in with this phantom rover.”
“It takes a great deal of worry to kill a man,” observed the doctor, who had no great faith in the effect of any but physical causes on the body, the consequences of a limited medical education, though he was a very fair surgeon. “If he persists in going without food and sleep, of course he will grow thin.”