gle moment
against them. Yes, lady, believe me when I tell thee this! For
many--many days have I dwelt, a lonely being, on the other side of this
isle, beyond that chain of mountains--remaining on that shore to which
the wild waves carried me on the night of shipwreck. But I hurried away
at last--I dared all the dangers of mighty precipices, yawning chasms,
and roaring torrents--the perils of yon mountains--rather than linger on
the other side. For the anaconda, lady, is the tenant of this
island--the monstrous snake--the terrible boa, whose dreadful coils, if
wound round that fair form of yours, would crush it into a hideous,
loathsome mass?"

Stephano had spoken so rapidly, and with such fevered excitement that he
had no time to reflect whether he were not wasting his words upon a
being who could not hear them; until exhausted and breathless with the
volubility of his utterance he remembered that he was addressing himself
to Nisida the deaf and dumb. But happily his appealing and his suppliant
posture had softened the lady: for toward the end of his long speech a
change came over her countenance, and she dropped the point of her sword
toward the ground.

Stephano rose, and stood gazing on her for a few moments with eyes that
seemed to devour her. His mind had suddenly recovered much of its wonted
boldness and audacity. So long as Nisida seemed terrible as well as
beautiful, he was subdued;--now that her eyes had ceased to dart forth
lightnings, and the expression of her countenance had changed from
indignation and resolute menace to pensiveness and a comparatively
mournful softness, the bandit as rapidly regained the usual tone of his
remorseless mind.

Yes; he stood gazing on her for a few moments, with eyes that seemed to
devour her:--then, in obedience to the impulse of maddening desire, he
rushed upon her, and in an instant wrenched the sword from her grasp.
But rapid as lightning, Nisida bounded away from him, ere he could wind
his arms around her; and fleet as the startled deer, she hastened toward
the groves.

Stephano, still retaining the sword in his hand, pursued her with a
celerity which was sustained by his desire to possess her and by his
rage that she had escaped him. But the race was unequal as that of a
lion in chase of a roe; for Nisida seemed borne along as it were upon
the very air. Leaving the groves on her left she dashed into the vale.
Along the sunny bank of the limpid stream she sped;--on,