self about me."

He hesitated and then abruptly left me, to return in the space of two
or three minutes with a thick rug of sheepskin. He insisted so
earnestly on my accepting this covering as a protection from the night
air, that, to please him, I yielded to his entreaties and lay down,
wrapped in its warm folds. The good-natured fellow then wished me a
"Buon riposo, signor!" and descended to his own resting-place, humming
a gay tune as he went. From my recumbent posture on the deck I stared
upward at the myriad stars that twinkled softly in the warm violet
skies--stared long and fixedly till it seemed to me that our ship had
also become a star, and was sailing through space with its glittering
companions. What inhabitants peopled those fair planets, I wondered?
Mere men and women who lived and loved and lied to one another as
bravely as we do? or superior beings to whom the least falsehood is
unknown? Was there one world among them where no women were born? Vague
fancies--odd theories--flitted through my brain, I lived over again the
agony of my imprisonment in the vaults--again I forced myself to
contemplate the scene I had witnessed between my wife and her
lover--again I meditated on every small detail requisite to the
fulfillment of the terrible vengeance I had designed. I have often
wondered how, in countries where divorce is allowed, a wronged husband
can satisfy himself with so meager a compensation for his injuries as
the mere getting rid of the woman who has deceived him. It is no
punishment to her--it is what she wishes. There is not even any very
special disgrace in it according to the present standard of social
observances. Were public whipping the recognized penalty for the crime
of a married woman's infidelity, there would be fewer of the like
scandals--the divorce might follow the scourging. A daintily brought-up
feminine creature would think twice, nay, fifty times, before she would
run the risk of allowing her delicate body to be lashed by whips
wielded by the merciless hands of a couple of her own sex--such a
prospect of degradation, pain, shame, and outraged vanity would be more
effectual to kill the brute in her than all the imposing ceremonials of
courts of law and special juries. Think of it, kings, lords, and
commons! Whipping at the cart's tail was once a legal punishment--if
you would stop the growing immorality and reckless vice of women you
had best revive it again--only apply it to rich as w