She embraced him closely and burst into tears.
"About three leagues in the rear, perhaps," he replied in a troubled voice.
"Our friends, and I trust our saviours! You remember the Signor di Castelermo?"
"O yes; and Signor Claude," she added, in a faint voice.
"May their timely presence and intervention avert that most dread catastrophe, of which even the contemplation is horror."
"You may depend upon us—ay, to the death!" said we both at once.
"You are pursued, I have reason to believe;" added the Maltese knight.
"Anywhere to safety: but my poor daughter would certainly expire with fatigue if we rode a league further. We have travelled seventy miles on the spur without drawing bridle once; save when Luisa’s horse fell beneath her in the wilderness of La Syla, when I was compelled to take her on the saddle of my own gallant Barbary. Often since then have we been in deadly peril: when lynxes shrieked, and herds of forest wolves howled behind us—when rivers foamed in front, and the mountain robbers showered their bullets from the rocks—I trembled and I prayed: but only for my daughter; and God—good and merciful—has spared her. Cavalieri! I am very unfortunate: I throw myself upon your generosity; and when did one soldier implore in vain the generosity of another? I trust that, like honourable men, you will stand by me in the coming peril: not for my sake, but for that of this poor sufferer; whom the Mother of Mercy preserve from the fury of those who are tracking her with horse and horn, as if she were some wild boar of Abruzzi, instead of the adorable girl she is. Perdition—let them come! The cowards shall find that Battista Gismondo has a willing heart and able hand, to defend the child that God has given, and the last that war and man have left him." He pressed the trembling girl to his breast: she sobbed convulsively, and nearly relapsed into unconsciousness.
"O my father!" exclaimed she, in piercing accents; "padre mia, my lips refuse to utter what my heart would bid them say: I can only hang upon your neck and sob like a little child, and kiss your cheek and weep. My father, I have destroyed you."
"Say rather, Luisa, that by casting temptation in your way, I have been the destroyer of you. Peace, peace little heart! Ah! how it beats and flutters!" he added, half playfully, pressing his fingers on her bosom.