do nothing against this frightful
hurricane which has driven us back to this point."

"It is the first time you have ever refused to go with me," remarked the
young man.

"Well, yes, my dear Bastiano, I do not know how it is, but to-night I
feel drawn to the island by an irresistible power. The winds have been
unchained to bring me back to it in spite of myself, and I will own to
you, even though it should make me seem like a madman in your eyes, that
this simple and ordinary event appears to me like an order from heaven.
Do you see that lamp shining over there?"

"I know it," answered Bastiano, suppressing a sigh.

"It was lighted before the Virgin one the day when my sister was born,
and for eighteen year it has never ceased to burn, night and day. It was
my mother's vow. You do not know, my dear Bastiano, you cannot know how
many torturing thoughts that vow recalls to me. My poor mother called me
to her deathbed and told me a frightful tale, a horrible secret, which
weighs on my soul like a cloak of lead, and of which I can only relieve
myself by confiding it to a friend. When her painful story was ended she
asked to see and to embrace my sister, who was just born; then with her
trembling hand, already chilled by the approach of death, she desired
to light the lamp herself. 'Remember,' these were her last words,
'remember, Gabriel, that your sister is vowed to the Madonna. As long
as this light shines before the blessed image of the Virgin, your sister
will be in no danger.' You can understand now why, at night, when we
are crossing the gulf, my eyes are always fixed on that lamp. I have
a belief that nothing could shake, which is that on the day that light
goes out my sister's soul will have taken flight to heaven."

"Well," cried Bastiano in an abrupt tone that betrayed the emotion of
his heart, "if you prefer to stay, I will go alone."

"Farewell," said Gabriel, without turning aside his eyes from the window
towards which he felt himself drawn by a fascination for which he could
not account. Bastiano disappeared, and Nisida's brother, assisted by the
waves, was drawing nearer and nearer to the shore, when, at all once, he
uttered a terrible cry which sounded above the noise of the tempest.

The star had just been extinguished; the lamp had been blown out.

"My sister is dead!" cried Gabriel and, leaping into the sea, he cleft
the waves with the rapidity of lightning.

The storm had redoubled its intensit