The sun of that avenging morning was beginning to shed its rays upon
the few stragglers in the Forum who, with pale squalid faces betokening
hunger and misery, shook their rags free of dust as they rose
unrefreshed from their slumbers, when a carriage containing four women
rolled through the suburbs. It passed rapidly along towards those vast
uninhabited plains, where little is to be seen except a wooden cross
here and there, reminding the traveller unpleasantly that on that spot a
murder has been committed.
Arriving at the little house already twice mentioned, its occupants
alighted; and who shall describe the joy of that meeting. Julia and
Aurelia contemplated in silence the reunion of the now happy Manlio with
his wife and daughter, for all the prisoners of the wicked palace were
free.
Camilla also watched their tears of gladness, but without any clear
comprehension. Could she have known the fate of her seducer, it might
perchance have restored her reason. After a thousand questions had been
asked and answered, Manlio addressed Julia, saying-
"Exile, alas! is all that remains for us. This atrocious Government can
not endure; but until it is annihilated we must absent ourselves from
our home and friends."
"Yes, yes! you must fly!" Julia said. "But it will not be long, I trust,
ere you will be able to return to Rome, and find her cleansed from the
slavery under which she now groans. My yacht is lying at Port d'Anzo; we
will make all haste to gain it, and I hope to see you embark safely in
the course of a few hours."
A yacht! I hear some of my Italian readers cry. What part of a woman's
belongings can this be? A yacht, then, is a small vessel in which the
sea-loving and wealthy British take their pleasure on the ocean, for
they fear not the storm, the heat of the torrid zone, or the cold of
the frozen ocean. Albion's sons, ay, and her daughters, too, leave their
comfortable firesides, and find life, health, strength, and happiness in
inhaling the briny air on board their own beautiful craft in pursuit of
enjoyment and knowledge. France, Spain, and Italy have not this little
word in their dictionaries. Their rich men dare not seek their pleasure
upon the waves--they give themselves to the foolish luxuries of great
cities, and hence is it that names like Rodney and Nelson are not in
their histories. Albion alone has always loved and ruled the waves for
centuries. Her wooden walls have been her inviolable defense. May her
new iron ramparts protect her hospitable shores from foreign foes!
But a yacht is a strange thing for a woman to possess. True, but
English Julia in childhood was of delicate constitution; the
physicians prescribed a sea-voyage, and her opulent parents equipped a
pleasure-vessel for her use. Thus Julia became so devoted to the blue
waves that, even when the balmy air of Italy had restored her to robust
health, she continued, when inclination disposed her, to make little
voyages of romance, discovery, and freedom in the waters of the
Mediterranean. Thus it was that she could offer so timely a refuge to
the family of the sculptor.