When once on her journey, and feeling each moment an advance towards the goal, Albinia was less unhappy than she could have thought possible; she trusted to her brother, and enjoyed the absence of responsibility, and while he let her go on, could give her mind to what pleased and interested him, and he, who was an excellent courier, so managed that there were few detentions to overthrow her equanimity on the way to Marseilles.

But when the Vectis came in sight of the rocky isle, with its white stony heights, the heart-sickness of apprehension grew over her, and she saw, as in a mist, the noble crescent-shaped harbour, the stately ramparts, mighty batteries, the lofty terraces of flat-roofed dwellings, apparently rather hewn out of, than built on, the dazzling white stone, between the intense blue of the sky above and of the sea below.  Her eye roamed as in a dream over the crowds of gay boats with white awnings, and the motley crowds of English and natives, the boatmen screaming and fighting for the luggage, and beggars plaintively whining out their entreaties for small coins.  Her brother Maurice had been at Malta as a little boy, and remembered the habits of the place enough, as soon as they had set foot on shore, to secure a brown-skinned loiterer, in Phrygian cap, loose trousers, and crimson sash, to act as guide and porter.

Along the Strada San Giovanni, a street of stairs, shut in by high stone walls, with doors opening on either side, they went not as fast as Albinia’s quivering limbs would fain have moved, yet too fast when her breath came thick with anxiety—­down again by the stone stairs called ‘Nix Mangiare’ (nothing to eat), from the incessant cry of the beggars that haunt them—­then again in a boat, which carried them amid a strange world of shipping to the bottom of the dockyard creek, where, again landing, she was told she had but to ascend, and she would be at Bormola.

She could have paused, in dread; and she leant heavily on her brother’s arm when they presently turned up a lane, no broader than a passage, with low stone steps at irregular intervals.  They were come!

The summons at the door was answered by a dark-visaged Maltese, and while Maurice was putting the question whether Colonel Ferrars and Captain Kendal lived here, a figure appeared on the stairs, and beckoned, ascending noiselessly with languid steps and slippered feet, and leading the way into a slightly furnished room, with green balcony and striped blind.  There he turned and held out his hand; but Albinia hardly recognised him till he said, ’I thought I heard your voice, Maurice;’ and then the low subdued tone, together with the gaunt wasted form, haggard aged face, the long beard, and worn undress uniform, with the armless sleeve, made her so realize his sufferings, that, clasping his remaining hand in both her own, she could utter nothing but, ‘Oh!  Fred!  Fred!’

He looked at her brother with such inquiry, perplexity, and compassion, that almost in despair Maurice exclaimed, ’We are not too late!’