Chapter 25

"--Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought."

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Ludlow quitting the Lust in Rust with a wavering purpose. Throughout the
whole of the preceding interview, he had jealously watched the eye and
features of la belle Barbérie; and he had not failed to draw his
conclusions from a mien that too plainly expressed a deep interest in the
free-trader. For a time, only, had he been induced, by the calmness and
self-possession with which she received her uncle and himself, to believe
that she had not visited the Water-Witch at all; but when the gay and
reckless being who governed the movements of that extraordinary vessel,
appeared, he could no longer flatter himself with this hope. He now
believed that her choice for life had been made; and while he deplored the
infatuation which could induce so gifted a woman to forget her station and
character, he was himself too frank not to see that the individual who had
in so short a time gained this ascendency over the feelings of Alida, was,
in many respects, fitted to exercise a powerful influence over the
imagination of a youthful and secluded female.

There was a struggle in the mind of the young commander, between his duty
and his feelings. Remembering the artifice by which he had formerly fallen
into the power of the smugglers, he had taken his precautions so well in
the present visit to the villa, that he firmly believed he had the person
of his lawless rival at his mercy. To avail himself of this advantage, or
to retire and leave him in possession of his mistress and his liberty, was
the point mooted in his thoughts. Though direct and simple in his habits,
like most of the seamen of that age, Ludlow had all the loftier sentiments
that become a gentleman. He felt keenly for Alida, and he shrunk, with
sensitive pride, from incurring the imputation of having acted under the
impulses of disappointment. To these motives of forbearance, was also to
be added the inherent reluctance which, as an officer of rank, he felt to
the degradation of being employed in a duty that more properly belongs to
men of less elevated ambition. He looked on himself as a defender of the
rights and glory of his sovereign, and not as a mercenary instrument of
those who collected her customs; and though he would not have hesitated to
incur any rational hazard, in capturing the vessel of the smuggler, or in
making captives of all or any of her crew on their proper element, he
disliked the appearance of seeking a solitary individual on the land. In
addition to this feeling, there was his own pledge that he met the
proscribed dealer in contraband on neutral ground. Still