"Salute me distantly and as a stranger," said the girl, in almost breathless haste, "and point to the different streets, as if inquiring your way through the town. This is the place where we met last evening; but, remember, it is no longer dark."
As Raoul complied with her desire any distant spectator might well have fancied the meeting accidental, though he poured forth a flood of expressions of love and admiration.
"Enough, Raoul," said the girl, blushing and dropping her eyes, though no displeasure was visible on her serene and placid face, "another time I might indulge you. How much worse is your situation now than it was last night! Then you had only the port to fear; now you have both the people of the port and this strange ship--an Inglese, as they tell me?"
"No doubt--la Proserpine, Etooell says, and he knows; you remember Etooell, dearest Ghita, the American who was with me at the tower--well, he has served in this very ship, and knows her to be la Proserpine, of forty-four." Raoul paused a moment; then he added, laughing in a way to surprise his companion--"Qui--la Proserpine, le Capitaine Sir Brown!"
"What you can find to amuse you in all this, Raoul, is more than I can discover. Sir Brown, or sir anybody else, will send you again to those evil English prison-ships, of which you have so often told me; and there is surely nothing pleasant in _that_ idea."
"Bah! my sweet Ghita, Sir Brown, or Sir White, or Sir Black has not yet got me. I am not a child, to tumble into the fire because the leading-strings are off; and le Feu-Follet shines or goes out, exactly as it suits her purposes. The frigate, ten to one, will just run close in and take a near look, and then square away and go to Livorno, where there is much more to amuse her officers, than here in Porto Ferrajo. This Sir Brown has his Ghita, as well as Raoul Yvard."
"No, not a Ghita, I fear, Raoul," answered the girl, smiling in spite of herself, while her color almost insensibly deepened--"Livorno has few ignorant country girls, like me, who have been educated in a lone watch-tower on the coast."
"Ghita," answered Raoul, with feeling, "that poor lone watch-tower of thine might well be envied by many a noble dame at Roma and at Napoli; it has left thee innocent and pure--a gem that gay capitals seldom contain; or, if found there, not in its native beauty, which they sully by use."