“Why—­you would not have her false?” I asked.

“Nay, nay—­for a false woman deserves death—­but still it is a pity Teresa should have fixed her love on Carmelo.  Such a man!  One day the gendarmes will have him, then he will be in the galleys for life, and she will die.  Yes—­you may be sure of that!  If grief does not kill her quickly enough, then she will kill herself, that is certain!  She is slight and frail to look at as a flower, but her soul is strong as iron.  She, will have her own way in death as well as in love—­some women are made so, and it is generally the weakest-looking among them who have the most courage.”

Our conversation was here interrupted by one of the sailors who came for his master’s orders.  The talkative skipper, with an apologetic smile and bow, placed his box of cigarettes beside me where I sat, and left me to my own reflections.

I was not sorry to be alone.  I needed a little breathing time—­a rest in which to think, though my thoughts, like a new solar system, revolved round the red planet of one central idea, VENGENCE.  “A false woman deserves death.”  Even this simple Sicilian mariner said so.  “Go and kill her, go and kill her!” These words reiterated themselves over and over again in my ears, till I found myself almost uttering them aloud.  My soul sickened at the contemplation of the woman Teresa—­the mistress of a wretched brigand whose name was fraught with horror—­whose looks were terrific—­she, even she could keep herself sacred from the profaning touch of other men’s caresses—­she was proud of being faithful to her wolf of the mountains, whose temper was uncertain and treacherous—­she could make lawful boast of her fidelity to her blood-stained lover—­while Nina—­the wedded wife of a noble whose descent was lofty and unsullied, could tear off the fair crown of honorable marriage and cast it in the dust—­could take the dignity of an ancient family and trample upon it—­could make herself so low and vile that even this common Teresa, knowing all, might and most probably would, refuse to touch her hand, considering it polluted.  Just God! what had Carmelo Neri done to deserve the priceless jewel of a true woman’s heart? what had I done to merit such foul deception as that which I was now called upon to avenge?  Suddenly I thought of my child.  Her memory came upon me like a ray of light—­I had almost forgotten her.  Poor little blossom!—­the slow hot tears forced themselves between my eyelids, as I called up before my fancy the picture of the soft baby face—­the young untroubled eyes—­the little coaxing mouth always budding into innocent kisses!  What should I do with her?  When the plan of punishment I had matured in my brain was carried out to its utmost, should I take her with me far, far away into some quiet corner of the world, and devote my life to hers?  Alas! alas! she, too, would be a woman and beautiful—­she was a flower born of a poisoned tree, who could say