While the Bohemian was on board the Red Galleon Erebus, now virtually considered a prisoner, shared the cabin of the chebec with Reine and Stephanette.

Notwithstanding her anger, notwithstanding her fright, notwithstanding her keen anxiety concerning the fate of her father, Mlle. des Anbiez could not remain insensible to the despair of Erebus.

He reproached himself so bitterly for her abduction, and had done so much to obtain from the Bohemian both her liberty and that of Stephanette, that she could not stifle every emotion of pity that rose in her heart.

Besides, in the frightful position in which she was placed, she felt that in him, at least, she had a defender.

A feeble ray of the sun lighted the little apartment where these three persons were associated.

Stephanette, exhausted by fatigue, was sleeping, half-recumbent on a mat.

Reine, seated, hid her face in her two hands.

Erebus stood with his arms crossed and head bowed, while great tears rolled down his pale cheeks.

“Nothing—nothing, I see no help,” said he, in a low voice; then, lifting a supplicating glance to Reine, he said: “What can be done, my God, to snatch you from the hands of these wretches?”

“My father, my father!” said Reine, in a hollow voice. Then turning to Erebus, she exclaimed: “Ah, be accursed, you have caused all my sorrows! But for you I should be with my father. Perhaps he is suffering—perhaps he is wounded! And then at least he would have my care. Ah, be accursed!”

“Yes, always accursed!” repeated Erebus, with bitterness. “My mother doubtless cursed me at my birth! Cursed by the man who reared me! Cursed by you!” added he, in a heartrending voice.

“Have you not taken a daughter from her father? Have you not often been the accomplice of the brigands who ravaged that unfortunate city!” cried Reine, with indignation.

“Oh, for pity’s sake do not crush me! Yes, I have been their accomplice. But, my God! have compassion on me. I was brought up to evil, as you have been brought up to good. You had a mother. You have a father. You have had always before your eyes noble examples to imitate. I,—thrown by chance among these wretches at the age of four or five years, I believe, without parents, without relations, a victim of Pog-Reis, who for his pastime—he told me yesterday—trained me to evil as one would train a young wolf to slaughter, accustomed to hear nothing but the language of bad passions, to know no restraint,—yet, at least, I repent of the evils I have caused. I weep—I weep with despair, because I cannot save you. These tears, which the most cruel suffering would not have wrung from me,—these tears are the expression of the remorse I feel for having wronged you. This wrong I have tried to repair by wishing to conduct you back to your father. Unfortunately, I could not succeed. Ah, if I only had not met you that day in the rocks of Provence, if only I had not seen your beauty—”

“Not a word more,” said Reine, with dignity. “It was that day my sorrows began. Oh, it was indeed a fatal day!”

“Yes, fatal, for if I had not seen you I should never have felt an aspiration toward good. My life would always have been a life of crime. I should never have been tormented by the remorse which now consumes me,” said Erebus, with a gloomy air.

“Unhappy man!” cried Reine, carried away in spite of herself by her secret preference. “Do not speak thus. Notwithstanding all the evil you have done me and mine, I shall despise our fatal meeting less, if you owe to it the only feelings which some day may result in the saving of your soul.”

Reine des Anbiez uttered these words with such earnestness, and with such an accent of interest, that Erebus clasped his hands, looking at her with gratitude and astonishment.

“Save my soul! I do not understand your words. Pog-Reis has always taught me there was no soul, but at last I see that you have a little pity for me. Those are the only kind words I have ever heard during my existence. Severity and cruelty repel me. Goodness would surely conquer me, would render me better, but, alas! who cares whether I am better or not? No one! I see only hatred, contempt, or indifference around me.”

He put his hand over his eyes, and remained silent.

Reine could not repress an emotion of pity for the unfortunate youth, nor a feeling of horror at the thought of his cruel education.

Moved with compassion, she could but hope that his natural instincts toward good had prevented his utter corruption. Since she had been in the power of the pirates, the conduct of Erebus had never transgressed the limits of the most profound respect. If he had abducted her from her father’s castle, with a most criminal audacity, he had, at least, shown in his bearing toward her a delicacy and forbearance which seemed almost like timidity.

This decided contrast proved to her the struggle of a noble, generous nature against a perverse education, and her imagination fondly pictured what he might have been, but for the cruel fate which imposed such a life upon him.

But these sentiments soon gave way to the anxious fears which agitated her mind concerning her father, and she cried with tears, “Oh, my father, my father! when shall I see him again? Oh, how dreadful!” Erebus, thinking that she addressed him, replied, sadly, “Do you think I would not attempt everything in the world to take you from this vessel? But what can be done? Ah, without you, without the vague hope that I have been useful to you—” Erebus could not finish, but his countenance was so sad that Reine, frightened, cried, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that when one cannot endure life the best thing is to get rid o............