owards the pirate, and
seizing his hands. "Land her in safety and honour among her own people,
and she will pay you the money if you demand it, and I--I will be
responsible that she does so with my life--but why demand it? you have
already more wealth than you require on board this vessel, and no rest
nor safety can you expect, or hope to find, while you follow your
present pursuits; your hand against every man, and the hand of every man
against you,"--(Nina knew not that she was quoting the words of the
sacred book to describe her husband)--"but oh, my husband, remember that
there is a land across the narrow Adriatic, where your deeds are
unknown, and where we may henceforth live unsuspected in tranquillity,
and with such happiness as we can enjoy--that land, the land of my
birth--there, in the home which I deserted for your sake, you will be
secure; there I will watch over you, will tend you, will strive to make
you forget the past in the contentment of the present; and should you be
discovered, should any one attempt to tear you from me, I will give my
life with joy for yours. Oh say that you will do this--say you will
abandon the evil course you are leading, and you will make my heart beat
lighter than it has done for many a day, and bless the words you utter."

The pirate was somewhat softened.

"Nina," he said, looking at her with a glance of more affection than she
had for a long time seen, "you know not what you ask me to do. You know
not the difficulty, the almost impossibility of accomplishing what you
wish. Even were I seized with the humour to turn virtuous, I cannot
abandon my vessel and my crew; they are bound to me and I to them; and
were I to quit them, they would be captured, to a certainty, and in just
revenge for my desertion, they would inform all they met of my retreat.
If I proposed to leave them they would not let me, and from that instant
I should lose all my authority. And then think, should I even succeed
in commencing the existence you propose, how is it likely to suit one,
accustomed from his earliest days to the dissipation of cities, or the
wild excitement of a rover's life--how should I, who have so long
commanded a band of men, regardless of all laws but those I have framed,
and yet obedient to me as children, submit to the dull, plodding
business of a country farmer engaged in superintending bumpkins in their
daily toil? No, Nina, you must not expect it; I feel it cannot be."

He