"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, VENGEANCE. "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 that there might not be a canker-worm hidden even in her heart, which waited but for the touch of maturity to commence its work of destruction! Oh, men! you that have serpents coiled round your lives in the shape of fair false women--if God has given you children by them, the curse descends upon you doubly! Hide it as you will under the society masks we are all forced to wear, you know there is nothing more keenly torturing than to see innocent babes look trustingly in the deceitful eyes of an unfaithful wife, and call her by the sacred name of "Mother." Eat ashes and drink wormwood, you shall find them sweet in comparison to that nauseating bitterness! For the rest of the day I was very much alone. The captain of the brig spoke cheerily to me now and then, but we were met by light contrary winds that necessitated his giving most of his attention to the management of his vessel, so that he could not permit himself to yield to the love of gossip that was inherent in him. The weather was perfect, and notwithstanding our constant shifting and tacking about to catch the erratic breeze, the gay little brig made merry and rapid way over the sparkling Mediterranean, at a rate that promised our arrival at Palermo by the sunset of the following day. As the evening came on the wind freshened, and by the time the moon soared like a large blight bird into the sky, we were scudding along sideways, the edge of our vessel leaning over to kiss the waves that gleamed like silver and gold, flecked here and there with phosphorescent flame. We skimmed almost under the bows of a magnificent yacht--the English flag floated from her mast--her sails glittered purely white in the moonbeams, and she sprung over the water like a sea-gull. A man, whose tall athletic figure was shown off to advantage by the yachting costume he wore, stood on deck, his arm thrown round the waist of a girl beside him. We were but a minute or two passing the stately vessel, yet I saw plainly this loving group of two, and--I pitied the man! Why? He was English undoubtedly--the son of a country where the very soil is supposed to be odorous of virtue--therefore the woman beside him must be a perfect pearl of purity; an Englishman never makes a mistake in these things! Never? Are you sure? Ah, believe me, there is not much difference nowadays between women of opposite nations. Once there was--I am willing to admit that possibility. Once, from all accounts received, the English rose was the fitting emblem of the English woman, but now, since the world has grown so wise and made such progress in the art of running rapidly downhill, is even the aristocratic British peer quite easy in his mind regarding his fair peeress? Can he leave her to her own devices with safety? Are there not men, boastful too of their "blue blood," who are perhaps ready to stoop to the thief's trick of entering his house during his absence by means of private keys, and stealing away his wife's affections?--and is not she, though a mother of three or four children, ready to receive with favor the mean robber of her husband's rights and honor? Read the London newspapers any day and you will find that once "moral" England is running a neck and neck race with other less hypocritical nations in pursuit of social vice. The barriers that once existed are broken down; "professional beauties" are received in circles where their presence formerly would have been the signal for all respectable women instantly to retire; ladies of title are satisfied to caper on the boards of the theatrical stage, in costumes that display their shape as undisguisedly as possible to the eyes of the grinning public, or they sing in concert halls for the pleasure of showing themselves off, and actually accept the vulgar applause of unwashed crowds with a smile and a bow of gratitude! Ye gods! what has become of the superb pride of the old regime--the pride which disdained all ostentation and clung to honor more closely than life! What a striking sign of the times too, is this: let a woman taint her virtue BEFORE marriage, she is never forgiven--her sin is never forgotten; but let her do what she will when she has a husband's name to screen her, and society winks its eyes at her crimes. Couple this fact with the general spirit of mockery that prevails in fashionable circles--mockery of religion, mockery of sentiment, mockery of all that is best and noblest in the human heart--add to it the general spread of "free-thought," and THEREFORE of conflicting and unstable opinions--let all these things together go on for a few years longer and England will stare at her sister nations like a bold woman in a domino--her features partly concealed from a pretense at shame, but her eyes glittering coldly through the mask, betraying to all who look at her how she secretly revels in her new code of lawlessness coupled with greed. For she will always be avaricious--and the worst of it is, that her nature being prosaic, there will be no redeeming grace to cast a glamour about her. France is unvirtuous enough, God knows, yet there is a sunshiny smile on her lips that cheers the heart. Italy is also unvirtuous, yet her voice is full of bird-like melody, and her face is a dream of perfect poetry! But England unvirtuous will be like a cautiously calculating, somewhat shrewish matron, possessed of unnatural and unbecoming friskiness, without either laugh, or song, or smile--her one god, Gold, and her one commandment, the suggested eleventh, "Thou shall not be found out!"