Yet she can do anything with
Carmelo--she is the one soft spot in his life."

"I wonder if she is true to him," I muttered, half to myself and half
aloud.

The captain caught up my words with an accent of surprise.

"True to him? Ah, Dio! but the signor does not know her. There was one
of Carmelo's own band, as bold and handsome a cut-throat as ever
lived--he was mad for Teresa--he followed her everywhere like a beaten
cur. One day he found her alone; he tried to embrace her--she snatched
a knife from his own girdle and stabbed him with it, like a little
fury! She did not kill him then, but Carmelo did afterward. To think of
a little woman like that with such a devil in her! It is her boast that
no man, save Carmelo, has ever touched so much as a ringlet of her
hair. Ay; she is true to him--more's the pity."

"Why--you would not have her false?" I asked.

"Nay, nay--for a false woman deserves death--but still it is a pity
Teresa should have fixed her love on Carmelo. Such a man! One day the
gendarmes will have him, then he will be in the galleys for life, and
she will die. Yes--you may be sure of that! If grief does not kill her
quickly enough, then she will kill herself, that is certain! She is
slight and frail to look at as a flower, but her soul is strong as
iron. She, will have her own way in death as well as in love--some
women are made so, and it is generally the weakest-looking among them
who have the most courage."

Our conversation was here interrupted by one of the sailors who came
for his master's orders. The talkative skipper, with an apologetic
smile and bow, placed his box of cigarettes beside me where I sat, and
left me to my own reflections.

I was not sorry to be alone. I needed a little breathing time--a rest
in which to think, though my thoughts, like a new solar system,
revolved round the red planet of one central idea, VENGEANCE. "A false
woman deserves death." Even this simple Sicilian mariner said so. "Go
and kill her, go and kill her!" These words reiterated themselves over
and over again in my ears, till I found myself almost uttering them
aloud. My soul sickened at the contemplation of the woman Teresa--the
mistress of a wretched brigand whose name was fraught with
horror--whose looks were terrific--she, even SHE could keep herself
sacred from the profaning touch of other men's caresses--she was proud
of being faithful to her wolf of the mountains, whose temper was
uncertain and treac