23
MADEIRA.
The service began; the old nuns croaked like frogs, and the young ones paced up and down, round and about, in strange and fanciful figures, chanting as sweetly as caged Canary birds. I gazed at them for a long time with feelings that cannot be told, and when it was time to go I caught Maria's eye, and made her a slight but earnest bow. She dropped a curtesy which seemed a genuflection to her neighbour, raised a violet behind her servicebook to her mouth, held it, looked at it, and kissed it in token of an eternal farewell. I wish to know whether there would have been any harm in my accepting the captain's offer of his coxswain and gig's crew, and running away with Maria Clementina ? The thing was perfectly easy, as we all agreed at the t i m e ; at the principal door there was no grating, and in the court none but maimed or decrepit persons; three men should stand at the outer gate and prevent any egress till we had brought our prize down to the Loo Rock; in a quarter of an hour we should be on board a man-of-war: and even if they had taken the alarm and fired from the battery, it is perfectly well known that the Portuguese government never allows more than one half of the due charge of powder to its artillery, and so we might have laughed at their impotent attempts. But what could I have done with my nun ? Her lover was, heaven knows where; and as to conjugating myself, although Maria was a very