_you_ say that? and to me V 9

"More still, Athalaric! I beseech you to forgive that I have repulsed
you so cruelly. Ah! it was from shame and fear."

"Camilla, pearl of my soul----"

Camilla, who had her face turned towards the shore, suddenly cried out:

"What is that? They follow us. The court! the women! my mother!"

It was so. Rusticiana, aroused by the Prefect's terrible warning, had
sought for her daughter in the garden. She could not find her. She
hurried to the Temple of Venus. In vain. Looking around, she suddenly
caught sight of the two--her child, alone with Athalaric--in the boat,
far out upon the sea.

Greatly angered, she rushed to the marble table, where the slaves
were just preparing the King's evening draught, sent them down the
steps to unloose the gondola, won in this way an unobserved moment
near the table, and directly afterwards descended the steps with
Daphnidion--whom her angry cry had awakened--to the boat.

At this moment the Prefect and his friends, whose walk had also led
them to this place, approached from a thick taxus-path. Cethegus
followed Rusticiana down the steps and gave her his hand to help her
into the gondola.

"It is done!" she whispered to him, and the boat pushed off.

It was just then that the young pair became aware of the movement upon
the beach. Camilla stood up; perhaps she suspected that the King would
turn the boat, but he cried:

"No; they shall not rob me of this hour, the happiest of my life! I
must sip still more of these sweet words. Oh, Camilla, you must tell me
more; you must tell me all! Come, we will land upon that island, they
may reach us there."

And rowing rapidly, he pressed with all his might upon the oar, so that
the boat flew forward as if winged.

"Will you not speak again?"

"Oh! my friend, my King--do not press me."

He only looked into her lovely face, into her beaming eyes; he paid no
more attention to his goal.

"Well, wait--there upon the island; there you shall----"

A renewed and passionate effort, when all at once a dull crash was
heard; the boat had struck, and drove, shaking violently, backwards.

"Oh, Heaven!" cried Camilla, springing up and looking towards the bow
of the boat. A whole volume of water came foaming towards her. "The
boat has burst! we sink!" she cried, turning pale.

"Come here to me; let me see!" cried Athalaric, starting up. "Ah! it is
the 'Needles of the Amphitrites!' We are lost!"

The "Needles of