“Fool!” thought Amine, as she watched the ship, which was now close to the anchorage.

In half-an-hour the vessel had anchored, and the people had landed.  Amine observed a priest with them, as they walked up to the fort.  She shuddered—­she knew not why; when they arrived, she found herself in the presence of Father Mathias.

Chapter XXIX

Both Amine and Father Mathias started, and drew back with surprise at this unexpected meeting.  Amine was the first to extend her hand; she had almost forgotten at the moment how they had parted, in the pleasure she experienced in meeting with a well-known face.

Father Mathias coldly took her hand, and laying his own upon her head, said:  “May God bless thee, and forgive thee, my daughter, as I have long done.”  Then the recollection of what had passed, rushed into Amine’s mind, and she coloured deeply.

Had Father Mathias forgiven her?  The event would show; but this is certain, he now treated her as an old friend:  listened with interest to her history of the wreck, and agreed with her upon the propriety of her accompanying him to Goa.

In a few days the vessel sailed, and Amine quitted the Factory and its enamoured Commandant.  They ran through the Archipelago in safety, and were crossing the mouth of the Bay of Bengal, without having had any interruption to fine weather.  Father Mathias had returned to Lisbon, when he quitted Ternicore, and, tired of idleness, had again volunteered to proceed as a missionary to India.  He had arrived at Formosa, and shortly after his arrival, had received directions from his superior to return on important business to Goa, and thus it was that he fell in with Amine at Tidore.

It would be difficult to analyse the feelings of Father Mathias towards Amine—­they varied so often.  At one moment, he would call to mind the kindness shown to him by her and Philip—­the regard he had for the husband, and the many good qualities which he acknowledged that she possessed—­and now he would recollect the disgrace, the unmerited disgrace, he had suffered through her means; and he would then canvass, whether she really did believe him an intruder in her chamber for other motives than those which actuated him, or whether she had taken advantage of his indiscretion.  These accounts were nearly balanced in his mind; he could have forgiven all, if he had thought that Amine was a sincere convert to the church; but his strong conviction that she was not only an unbeliever, but that she practised forbidden arts, turned the scale against her.  He watched her narrowly, and when, in her conversation, she shewed any religious feeling, his heart warmed towards her; but when, on the contrary, any words escaped her lips which seemed to show that she thought lightly of his creed, then the full tide of indignation and vengeance poured into his bosom.

It was in crossing the Bay of Bengal, to pass round the southern cape of Ceylon, that they first met with bad weather; and when the storm increased, the superstitious seamen lighted candles before the small image of the saint which was shrined on deck.  Amine observed it, and smiled with scorn; and as she did so, almost unwittingly, she perceived that the eye of Father Mathias was earnestly fixed upon her.