n, and he was on the look out for you, when we so
inopportunely came up, and spoilt your arrangements."

"Can it be so?" thought Ada. "Is he really ignorant that Fleetwood is
close to him? Alas, he may be deceiving me, and if I pretend to agree
to his assertions, he will but use it as a weapon against me. The right
and best plan is to refuse to give an opinion on the subject."

"I am your prisoner, signor," she said, aloud; "and as such I claim
every right to endeavour to escape as I best can. It would therefore be
folly in me to acknowledge by what means I have communicated with my
countrymen, even if I had done as you suppose, lest you should prevent
my doing so another time."

"_Per bacco_, you are a brave girl!" exclaimed the pirate, in a tone in
which Ada felt that admiration was too much mingled with a familiarity
she had endeavoured to avoid. "I would rather be your friend than your
enemy, if you would let me. Faith, you deserve your liberty, or
anything else that you desire; but it would tax my generosity too much
to give it to you."

What he said further, Ada did not hear; for the noise of the firing,
which then commenced from the cliffs above, as well as from the boats,
drowned his words. She trembled for the fate of the _Tone's_ crew, who
were coming to her assistance; for she was sufficiently acquainted with
the nature of military defences, to know the impracticable character of
the harbour into which the pirates, she was afraid, would try to draw
them.

The firing increased; and she judged, by the gestures of the Greeks, who
were rowing, that her countrymen were close upon them. Again the hope
revived that, even then, Fleetwood might be rescued. The shouts of the
British seamen rang in her ears. She could scarcely refrain from rising
and waving to them to urge them on to the succour of their captain; but,
just as she fancied they would be alongside, she saw the cliffs, at the
entrance of the harbour, towering above her, and the boat shooting in;
directly after, the _Sea Hawk_ opened her fire, and her ears were
deafened with the reverberating reports of the guns, and the shouts and
shrieks of the pirates. The moment the boat touched the shore, Zappa
and his companions sprang out, he shouting,--"To the castle--to the
castle! We will give them the guns as they retreat."

And Ada found herself left alone with Pietro and Marianna. In vain she
endeavoured to arouse her lover to a state of consc