"Enough, Raoul," said the girl, blushing and dropping her eyes, though
no displeasure was visible on her serene and placid face, "another time
I might indulge you. How much worse is your situation now than it was
last night! Then you had only the port to fear; now you have both the
people of the port and this strange ship--an Inglese, as they tell me?"
"No doubt--la Proserpine, Etooell says, and he knows; you remember
Etooell, dearest Ghita, the American who was with me at the tower--well,
he has served in this very ship, and knows her to be la Proserpine, of
forty-four." Raoul paused a moment; then he added, laughing in a way to
surprise his companion--"Qui--la Proserpine, le Capitaine Sir Brown!"
"What you can find to amuse you in all this, Raoul, is more than I can
discover. Sir Brown, or sir anybody else, will send you again to those
evil English prison-ships, of which you have so often told me; and there
is surely nothing pleasant in _that_ idea."
"Bah! my sweet Ghita, Sir Brown, or Sir White, or Sir Black has not yet
got me. I am not a child, to tumble into the fire because the
leading-strings are off; and le Feu-Follet shines or goes out, exactly
as it suits her purposes. The frigate, ten to one, will just run close
in and take a near look, and then square away and go to Livorno, where
there is much more to amuse her officers, than here in Porto Ferrajo.
This Sir Brown has his Ghita, as well as Raoul Yvard."
"No, not a Ghita, I fear, Raoul," answered the girl, smiling in spite of
herself, while her color almost insensibly deepened--"Livorno has few
ignorant country girls, like me, who have been educated in a lone
watch-tower on the coast.
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