1830.] Ten Days' Quarantine : an Anecdote. 509 



have feigned slumber but a moment before, I was nevertheless comforted 

 by an accent of honesty in the man's voice very different from the tone 

 of his previous excuses. I encouraged him to say his say, and in sub- 

 stance it amounted to this : that " there was some one in the building, 

 an old and most dear friend, whom he had engaged to see in the dead of 

 night, as at no other hour could their meeting have escaped the vigil- 

 ance of the guards. This friend, he said, was in another quarter of the 

 lazaretto, surrounded by people who would, if they could, prevent their 

 coming together, so that the utmost caution was requisite to render his 

 movements as inaudible as possible. Having told me thus much, and 

 entreated me to make no noise, he proceeded on his way. I rose quietly 

 from my bed, and observed him, as well as the darkness would allow, in 

 the progress of his plans. Having stolen through our doorway, he crept 

 along the gallery till he reached the post at which the hospital guard 

 should have been watching. After a little pause, I saw his figure ema- 

 nating from the shade, and skulking onwards as before, till he reached 

 and doubled the angle of the gallery. When he had advanced to a point 

 nearly opposite to me on the other side of the court, he suddenly paused, 

 and after a careful survey in all directions, at last laid himself down quite 

 prostrate, with his head towards the verge of the foot-planks overhanging 

 the area of the court. Having done this, I heard, though so faintly that 

 I almost doubted my own senses, a thin, fine sound, like the smallest con- 

 ceivable intonation of a man in whistling. This signal, for so I concluded 

 it to be, was speedily attended to. A door went immediately beneath 

 him, that is, on the ground floor, slowly turned on its noiseless hinges, 

 and a figure in female drapery emerged from the apartment. Her steps 

 must have been slow indeed, for I was almost wearied with waiting, 

 whilst she was accomplishing the tiny distance between her starting 

 point and that which brought her nearest to the gentleman in the strange 

 posture above her head. I next saw his arm outstretched, and something 

 suspended from it, which she contrived to reach, but whether this was 

 all the purpose for which they met, or their further proceedings were 

 interrupted, I know not ; however, immediately afterwards, and with 

 somewhat more speed than before, each retreated from the scene of 

 action, and in a few minutes my companion returned. He was afraid of 

 disturbing the guards by talking to me, so I heard nothing more of this 

 matter until the following morning. 



He then explained more fully the nature of his immediate situation, 

 which undoubtedly was sufficiently singular. He had been attached, he 

 said, when at Alexandria, to the daughter of a fellow-countryman trading 

 at that port. For some reason or other, his suit, though encouraged by 

 the girl, was positively forbidden by her father ; so much so, that upon 

 taking one of his customary voyages from Alexandria, the old seaman 

 resolved to take her with him, lest in his absence the mischief which he 

 dreaded might be consummated. But the attachment had by this time 

 become too strong to be so easily broken. It was durable ; it was mu- 

 tual ; and when Carmela bade a farewell to the home of her best hopes, 

 she knew that he would follow in the first vessel that had the same des- 

 tination. Thus, the one arrived in harbour exactly ten days before the 

 other ; and all his difficulty was to effect some intercourse with her, some 

 tokens of recognition, some renewal of past scenes, without incurring the 

 risk of observation. For this reason, he had abstained from presenting 

 himself in the balcony, to view the external prospect which to me had 



