“Well, young lady, he did speak to me, and a damned impertinent thing he said, too. He had the folly—the outrageous, unconscionable folly—to ask me to allow you to marry him!” exclaimed the colonel in a husky voice, again almost driving his stick through the bottom of the carriage. “He had the folly; but I was not fool enough to accede to it—I refused him, young woman. And now, never let me hear his name mentioned again.”
With a sad heart Ada placed her head on her pillow, and, with a sadder still, she rose on the following morning to prepare for her voyage.
Chapter Six.
The crew of the Sicilian speronara were busily engaged the whole fore part of the day in discharging the small quantity of cargo, consisting chiefly of corn and other provisions, with which their vessel was laden.
When this was done she immediately cleared out at the custom-house, and without any of her crew having even visited the shore, she got up her anchor, and commenced making sail. The long tapering yard of her foresail was first hoisted, and its folds of white canvas let fall, and when her head paid round, her mainsail was next got on her, and sheeted home. Instead, however, of running out of the harbour, as it at first appeared she was about to do, after she had gone a little distance, just between Fort Saint Angelo and Fort Ricasoli, she hauled her foresail to windward, and hove to. The probable cause of this was soon explained, for a small boat was seen to dart out from beneath the fortifications of Valetta, and to take its way across the harbour towards her, carrying a person in the stern-sheets, wrapped up in a cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat shading his features. The hat may not have been worn for the purpose of disguise, for the rays of the sun, striking down full upon the water, were very ardent, and there was good reason for its being worn to protect him from their fury; but there was not quite so much for the use of the cloak, unless, following the Italian fashion, he carried that also over his shoulders for the same reason. The boat ran alongside the speronara, when the person, whoever he was, stepped out, and the foresail being let draw, the beautiful little craft stood out of the harbour. The boat on its return was found to belong to the boatman Manuel, who, being questioned as to the person he had conveyed on board the speronara, declared that he had not the slightest notion who he was—that he had never before seen his face, and that he could not tell whether he was an Englishman, an Italian, or a Frenchman, but that he thought the former. He said, all he knew was, that he had come down to the shore and engaged his boat, and as he had paid him well for the job, it was not his business to make further inquiries. The general opinion was, that he was some person making his escape from his creditors; but by the time the proper authorities were informed of the supposed fact, and the necessary measures taken to ascertain its truth, the delinquent was far beyond their reach.
The wind was about north-west—there was a nice fresh breeze, and supposing that the speronara was bound for Syracuse, she could, hauling as close to the wind as she was able to do, easily lay her course for that port. Either, however, she was carelessly steered, or she was bound to some port in Italy, for, after hauling round Saint Elmo, she fell off considerably from the wind, and finally, when she might have been supposed to have got beyond the range of observation of those on shore, who were not likely to take much notice of so insignificant a little craft, and of so ordinary a rig, she eased off both her sheets, and, with the wind on her larboard quarter, indeed, almost astern, ran out into the offing. By this course she crossed in a short time the mouth of the harbour; and though at a considerable distance, she was enabled to watch any vessel coming out.
Her movements, however, were not totally unobserved, for Captain Fleetwood, who had called at the house of Colonel Gauntlett, early in the morning, in the vain hope of seeing Ada, was returning in a disconsolate mood along the ramparts, and meditating in what way his duty should direct him to proceed, when his eye fell on the speronara, hove-to directly below him, Manuel’s boat just touching her side.
As he had, like most naval officers, a remarkably good glass in his pocket, he directed it towards the little vessel, and among the people on her deck he fancied that he distinguished the figure of the stranger who had paid so much attention to Ada on the previous evening. Now, as he understood that that gentleman was about to sail immediately for Greece, he was naturally surprised, indeed so unlikely did it appear, that he thought he must be mistaken. Although he was very far from being of a suspicious disposition, yet combining the manner in which the stranger had gone on board, and the doubtful character of the craft herself, he determined to watch her movements.