Knowing that Nina was still confined to her room, he had resorted hither to consider his schemes without interruption, and was so busily employed in comparing distances, and calculating possibilities, on the map before him, that Fanchette easily crept to a place whence she could, unperceived, overhear and observe him. “I must and will attempt it,” he muttered aloud to himself; “we must steal a boat. Cupid and I can manage it between us; my duty and my love both forbid my staying longer here: with a fishing–boat we might reach Antigua or Dominica, or at all events chance to fall in with an American or a neutral vessel. Poor dear Nina,” he added, in a lower tone. “Would to God I had never visited this shore! _this_,” he continued, drawing a locket from his breast, “this treasured remembrance of one far distant has made me proof against thy charms, cold to thy love, but not, as Heaven is my witness, unmoved or insensible to thy sufferings.” So saying he relapsed into silent musing; and as he replaced the locket, Fanchette crept noiselessly from her concealment, and ran to communicate to her young mistress her version of what she had seen. Being very imperfectly skilled in English, she put her own construction upon those few words which she had caught, and thought to serve Nina best by telling her what she would most like to hear. Thus she described to her how Ethelston had spoken to himself over a map; how he had mentioned islands to which he would sail; how he had named her name with tenderness, and had taken something from his vest to press it to his lips.