A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 20

She blushed and looked aside into the water.

"Oh, speak! Be frank in this happy hour."

"I was thinking," she said, her pretty head still averted, "how delightful it must be to be steered through the heaving flood of life by a faithful and beloved hand, to whose guidance one could implicitly trust."

"Oh, Camilla, even a barbarian may be trusted--"

"You are no barbarian! Whoever feels so tenderly, thinks so n.o.bly, so generously controls himself, and rewards great ingrat.i.tude with kindness, is no barbarian! He is as n.o.ble a man as ever Scipio was."

The King ceased to row in his delight; the boat remained motionless.

"Camilla, am I dreaming? Did _you_ say that? and to me V 9

"More still, Athalaric! I beseech you to forgive that I have repulsed you so cruelly. Ah! it was from shame and fear."

"Camilla, pearl of my soul----"

Camilla, who had her face turned towards the sh.o.r.e, suddenly cried out:

"What is that? They follow us. The court! the women! my mother!"

It was so. Rusticiana, aroused by the Prefect's terrible warning, had sought for her daughter in the garden. She could not find her. She hurried to the Temple of Venus. In vain. Looking around, she suddenly caught sight of the two--her child, alone with Athalaric--in the boat, far out upon the sea.

Greatly angered, she rushed to the marble table, where the slaves were just preparing the King's evening draught, sent them down the steps to unloose the gondola, won in this way an un.o.bserved moment near the table, and directly afterwards descended the steps with Daphnidion--whom her angry cry had awakened--to the boat.

At this moment the Prefect and his friends, whose walk had also led them to this place, approached from a thick taxus-path. Cethegus followed Rusticiana down the steps and gave her his hand to help her into the gondola.

"It is done!" she whispered to him, and the boat pushed off.

It was just then that the young pair became aware of the movement upon the beach. Camilla stood up; perhaps she suspected that the King would turn the boat, but he cried:

"No; they shall not rob me of this hour, the happiest of my life! I must sip still more of these sweet words. Oh, Camilla, you must tell me more; you must tell me all! Come, we will land upon that island, they may reach us there."

And rowing rapidly, he pressed with all his might upon the oar, so that the boat flew forward as if winged.

"Will you not speak again?"

"Oh! my friend, my King--do not press me."

He only looked into her lovely face, into her beaming eyes; he paid no more attention to his goal.

"Well, wait--there upon the island; there you shall----"

A renewed and pa.s.sionate effort, when all at once a dull crash was heard; the boat had struck, and drove, shaking violently, backwards.

"Oh, Heaven!" cried Camilla, springing up and looking towards the bow of the boat. A whole volume of water came foaming towards her. "The boat has burst! we sink!" she cried, turning pale.

"Come here to me; let me see!" cried Athalaric, starting up. "Ah! it is the 'Needles of the Amphitrites!' We are lost!"

The "Needles of the Amphitrites"--we know that they could scarcely be seen from the terrace of the temple--were two narrow, sharp-pointed rocks, lying between the sh.o.r.e and the nearest lagoon island. They scarcely rose above the level of the water; with the slightest wind, the waves washed quite over them.

Athalaric knew the danger of the place, and had always easily avoided it; but this time he had only looked into Camilla's eyes.

At one glance he saw their fearful position.

They could not be saved.

A plank in the bottom of the slightly-made boat had sprung; the water rushed rapidly through the leak. The boat sank deeper and deeper every moment.

He could not hope, with Camilla, to gain the nearest island or the sh.o.r.e by swimming. On the narrow point of the rock scarcely the feet of a sea-eagle could have found a moment's resting-place, and Rusticiana's gondola had only just pushed off from the land.

All this he had seen with lightning-like rapidity, and he cast a horrified look at Camilla.

"Beloved, thou must die!" he cried despairingly. "And through me!" He embraced her pa.s.sionately.

"Die?" she cried. "Oh no! not so young--not now! Let me live--live with thee!" And she clung closely to his arm.

The tone, the words, cut him to the heart. He tore himself loose; he looked about for rescue. In vain; in vain. The water rose higher and higher; the boat sank more and more rapidly. He threw the oar away.

"It is over--all is over, beloved! Let us take leave!"

"No; we part no more! If we must die--oh! then, away with all the restraints which bind the living!" And, glowing all over, she nestled to his breast. "Oh! let me tell thee, let me confess to thee how much I love thee; how long ago--since--since first I knew thee! All my hate was only bashful love. Oh, G.o.d! I loved thee already when I thought I ought to abhor thee! Yes, thou shalt know how I love thee!" And she covered his eyes and mouth with hasty kisses. "Oh! now I will gladly die. Rather die with thee than live without thee! But no"--and she suddenly pushed him away--"thou shalt not die! Leave me here; go!

swim--you can easily reach the island alone. Try; and leave me."

"No," he cried, in an ecstasy of joy; "rather die with thee than live without thee! After such painful doubt, at length joyous certainty!

From this hour we belong to each other for ever. Come, Camilla, beloved, let us die together!"

A shudder of horror and delight, of love and death, shook their frames.

He drew her to him, embraced her with his left arm, and lifted her upon the steer-board of the boat, which scarcely rose a hand's-breadth above the water. Already he prepared for the fatal leap--when suddenly they both uttered a joyful cry.

Round a precipitous promontory which stretched far out into the sea, at a short distance, they saw a s.h.i.+p coming at full speed.

The crew had heard their cry, and, at all events, saw their danger; perhaps had even recognised the person of the King. Forty oars, plunged into the water at the same moment by the rowers on the double deck, gave impetus to the course of the swift vessel, which rustled before the wind with swelling sails.

Those who crowded the deck shouted to them to stand firm; and presently--it was high time--the prow of the bireme lay close over the little boat, which sank immediately after the endangered pair had been taken on board the s.h.i.+p through the opening of the lower deck.

It was a small Gothic guards.h.i.+p. The golden rampant lion, the arms of the Amelungs, shone upon the blue flag. Aligern, a cousin of Teja, commanded it.

"Thanks, brave friends!" said Athalaric, as soon as he could find words. "Thanks! you have not only saved your King, but also your Queen!"

Much astonished, soldiers and sailors surrounded the happy man, who held the weeping Camilla in his arms.

"Hail to our young and beautiful Queen!" cried the red-haired Aligern; and the crew shouted enthusiastically, "Hail! hail to our Queen!"

At this moment the sailing-vessel rustled past Rusticiana's gondola.

The sound of this joyous shout aroused the unhappy woman from the stupor of horror into which she had fallen when her two startled oarsmen had discovered the danger of the young couple in the sinking boat, and had at once declared that it was impossible to save them.

On hearing this, she had sunk senseless into Daphnidion's arms. Now she came to herself, and cast a confused glance around her. She was amazed.