ed plank;
and for an instant she hesitated to proceed.

Could she abandon Fernand to the solitude of that isle? Could she
renounce the joys which his love had taught her to experience? And might
she not be enabled to persuade him to make that sacrifice which would
invest him with a power that she herself would direct and wield
according to her own pleasure and suitably to her own interests? But,
oh! that hesitation lasted not more than a moment; for her feet were on
the plank leading to the barge, and at a short distance floated the ship
that would bear her away from the isle.

One longing, lingering look upon the shore of that island where she had
enjoyed so much happiness, even if she had experienced so much anxiety;
one longing, lingering look, and she hesitated no more. Ibrahim escorted
her to a seat beneath the velvet canopy; the officer in command gave the
signal, the barge was shoved off, the rowers plied their oars, and the
island was already far behind, ere Nisida had the courage to glance
toward it again!

CHAPTER LVII.

Let us now return to Fernand Wagner, whom we left flying from his
Nisida, flying in horror and alarm from her whom he nevertheless loved
so tenderly and devotedly. He fled as if from the brink of the yawning
pit of hell, into which the malignant fiend who coveted his soul was
about to plunge him. Nor once did he look back. Absorbed as his feelings
were in the full conviction of the tremendous peril from which he had
just escaped, he still found room for the reflection that were he to
turn and catch but one glimpse of the beauteous, oh! too beauteous
creature from whom he had torn himself away, he should be lost. His mind
was bent upon the salvation of his immortal soul; and he knew that the
enemy of mankind was assailing him with a power and with an energy which
nothing save the assistance of Heaven could enable him to resist. He
knew also that Heaven helps only those who are willing and anxious to
help themselves; and of this doctrine he had received a striking and
triumphant proof in the sudden and evanescent appearance of his guardian
angel at the instant when, overpowered by the strong, the earnest, and
the pathetic pleading of the siren Nisida, he was about to proclaim his
readiness to effect the crowning sacrifice. And it was to avoid the
chance of that direful yielding--to fly from a temptation which became
irresistible when embellished with all the eloquence of a woman on w