"Come, Signor; ten minutes more, and we are lost!"
Leoni followed, though almost unconsciously; and in an instant more, Stefano was steering his boat into the bay.
"Lolah, why are you here?" burst from him in the bitter accents of self-reproach, as he felt her head sink on his shoulder.
"Nay, my Leoni," said the low sweet voice on which he once hung with such passionate love, "where should I be but where rests all my earthly happiness? with my head on your heart, Leoni, love mine, I am very, very happy!"
Gently his arm enfolded the confiding and childlike form that rested upon him, and all the memory of their early tenderness gushed into his thoughts; while she, with a woman's engrossing devotedness, forgot every thing but that her husband was once more her own.
"You must just pass for two runaways," said Stefano, "who have bribed me to row you beyond a powerful noble's reach, and who mean to stay from Palermo, till, for the daughter's sake, the lover is forgiven."
"Whither are we going?" asked Montefiore.
"On board yonder vessel, which bears a smuggling cargo; and pray you, at the port where she stops, lose no time in embarking for another. Do you remember the Marchese di Gonzarga?"
"Ay, the stripling! the sweeping away of
