Yes; for there were times when all the loveliness of that island seemed but a hideous place of exile, an abhorrent monotony which surrounded her--grasped her--clung to her--hemmed her in, as if it were an evil spirit, having life and the power to torture her. She thought of those whom she loved, she pondered upon all the grand schemes of her existence, and she felt herself cut off from a world to which there were so many ties to bind her, and in which she had so much to do. Then she would give way to all the anguish of her soul--an anguish that amounted to the deepest, blackest despair, when her glances wildly swept the cloudless horizon, and beheld not a sail--no! nor a speck on the ocean to engender hope. But when this tempest of grief and passion was past, she would be angry with herself for having yielded to it; and, in order to distract her thoughts from subjects of gloom, she would bound toward the groves, light as a fawn, the dazzling whiteness of her naked and polished ankles gleaming in contrast with the verdure of the vale. One morning after Nisida had been many, many days on the island, she was seated on the sand, having just completed her simple toilet on emerging from the mighty bath that lay stretched in glassy stillness far as the eye could reach, when she suddenly sprung upon her feet, and threw affrighted looks around her. Had she possessed the faculty of hearing, it would be thought that she was thus startled by the sound of a human voice which had at that instant broken upon the solemn stillness of the isle--a human voice emanating from a short distance behind her. As yet she saw no one; but in a few moments a man emerged from the nearest grove, and came slowly toward her. He was dressed in a light jerkin, trunk-breeches, tight hose, and boot--in all as an Italian gentleman of that day, save in respect to hat and doublet, of which he had none. Neither wore he a sword by his side, nor carried any weapons of defense; and it was evident he approached the island queen with mingled curiosity and awe. Perhaps he deemed her to be some goddess, endowed with the power and the will to punish his intrusion on her realm; or peradventure his superstitious imagination dwelt on the tales which sailors told in those times--how mermaids who fed on human flesh dwelt on the coasts of uninhabited islands, and assuming the most charming female forms, lured into their embrace the victims whom shipwreck cast upon their strand, and instead of lavishing on them the raptures of love, made them the prey of their ravenous maws.