Page 601 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘Your dead mother,’ he said, very low.
‘Ah! … Poor mother! She has always … She is a saint in
heaven now, and I cannot give you up to her. No, Giovanni.
Only to God alone. You were mad—but it is done. Oh! what
have you done? Giovanni, my beloved, my life, my master,
do not leave me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot
leave me now. You must take me away—at once—this in-
stant—in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off to-night,
from my fear of Linda’s eyes, before I have to look at her
again.’
She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tome silver
felt the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a pressure as of a
cold hand upon his lips. He struggled against the spell.
‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘Not yet. There is something that
stands between us two and the freedom of the world.’
She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle and
naive instinct of seduction.
‘You rave, Giovanni—my lover!’ she whispered, engaging-
ly. ‘What can there be? Carry me off—in thy very hands—to
Dona Emilia—away from here. I am not very heavy.’
It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at
once in his two palms. She had lost the notion of all impos-
sibility. Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As
he made no movement, she almost cried aloud—
‘I tell you I am afraid of Linda!’ And still he did not move.
She became quiet and wily. ‘What can there be?’ she asked,
coaxingly.
He felt her warm, breathing, alive, quivering in the hol-
low of his arm. In the exulting consciousness of his strength,

00 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard