“Surely, Eudora, you forget strangely!—­Here it is all America.  This mountain is America; yonder land across the bay is America, and the anchorage of yesterday was America.  When we shall run off the coast, the next land-fall will be England, or Holland, or Africa; and with a good wind, we may run down the shores of two or three countries in a day.”

“And on them, too, thoughtless boy!  If you lose this occasion, thy life will be wedded to hazard!”

“Farewell, Eudora!” said the urchin, raising his mouth to give and receive the parting kiss.

“Eudora, adieu!” added a deep and melancholy voice, at her elbow.  “I can delay no longer, for my people show symptoms of impatience.  Should this be the last of my voyages to the coast, thou wilt not forget those with whom thou hast so long shared good and evil!”

“Not yet—­not yet—­you will not quit us yet!  Leave me the boy—­leave me some other memorial of the past, besides this pain!”

“My hour has come.  The wind is freshening, and I trifle with its favor.  ’Twill be better for thy happiness that none know the history of the brigantine; and a few hours will draw a hundred curious eyes, from the town, upon us.”

“What care I for their opinions?—­thou wilt not—­cannot—­leave me, yet!”

“Gladly would I stay, Eudora, but a seaman’s home is his ship.  Too much precious time is already wasted.  Once more, adieu!”

The dark eye of the girl glanced wildly about her.  It seemed, as if in that one quick and hurried look, it drank in all that belonged to the land and its enjoyments.

“Whither go you?” she asked, scarce suffering her voice to rise above a whisper.  “Whither do you sail, and when do you return?”

“I follow fortune.  My return may be distant—­never!—­Adieu then, Eudora—­be happy with the friends that Providence hath given thee!”

The wandering eyes of the girl of the sea became still more unsettled.  She grasped the offered hand of the free-trader in both her own, and wrung it in an impassioned and unconscious manner.  Then releasing her hold, she opened wide her arms, and cast them convulsively about his unmoved and unyielding form.

“We will go together!—­I am thine, and thine only!”

“Thou knowest not what thou sayest, Eudora!” gasped the Skimmer—­“Thou hast a father—­friend—­husband—­”

“Away, away!” cried the frantic girl, waving her hand wildly towards Alida and the Patroon, who advanced as if hurrying to rescue her from a precipice—­“Thine, and thine only!”

The smuggler released himself from her frenzied grasp, and, with the strength of a giant, he held the struggling girl at the length of his arm, while he endeavored to control the tempest of passion that struggled within him.

“Think, for one moment, think!” he said.  “Thou wouldst follow an outcast—­an outlaw—­one hunted and condemned of men!”

“Thine, and thine only!”