"Then let his majesty show his gracious face, and come and take us, for I'll be——"

The asseveration of the marine was interrupted by Griffith, whose blood had sensibly cooled, and whose generous feelings were awakened in behalf of his comrades, now that his own fate seemed decided.

"Hold, Manual," he cried, "make no rash oaths: Captain Borroughcliffe, I am Edward Griffith, a lieutenant in the navy of the United American States, and I pledge you my honor to a parole——"

"Release him," said Borroughcliffe.

Griffith advanced between the two parties, and spoke so as to be heard by both:

I propose to descend to the vault, and ascertain the loss and present strength of Captain Manual's party: if the latter be not greater than I apprehend, I shall advise him to a surrender on the usual conditions of civilized nations."

"Go," said the soldier; "but stay; is he a half-and-half—an amphibious—pshaw! I mean a marine?"

"He is, sir, a captain in that corps——"

"The very man," interrupted Borroughcliffe; "I thought I recollected the liquid sounds of his voice. It will be well to speak to him of the good fare of St. Ruth; and you may add, that I know my man: I shall besiege, instead of storming him, with the certainty of a surrender when his canteen is empty. The vault he is in holds no such beverage as the cellars of the Abbey."

Griffith smiled, in spite of the occasion and his vexation; and making a slight inclination of his head he passed into the vault, giving notice to his friends, by his voice, in order to apprise them who approached.

He found six of the marines, including the sentinel, lying dead on the ragged pavement, and four others wounded, but stifling their groans, by the order of their commander, that they might not inform the enemy of his weakness. With the remainder of his command Manual had entrenched himself behind the fragment of a wall that intersected the vault, and, regardless of the dismaying objects before him, maintained as bold a front, and as momentous an air, as if the fate of a walled town depended on his resolution and ingenuity.

"You see, Mr. Griffith," he cried, when the young sailor approached this gloomy but really formidable arrangement, "that nothing short of artillery can dislodge me: as for that drinking Englishman above, let him send down his men by platoons of eight or ten, and I'll pile them up on those steps, four and five deep."

"But artillery can and will be brought, if it should be necessary," said Griffith; "and there is not the least chance of your eventual escape: it may be possible for you to destroy a few of the enemy, but you are too humane to wish to do it unnecessarily."

"No doubt," returned Manual with a grim smile; "and yet methinks I could find present pleasure in shooting seven of them—yes, just seven, which is one more than they have struck off my roster."

"Remember your own wounded," added Griffith; "they suffer for want of aid, while you protract a useless defence."

A few smothered groans from the sufferers seconded this appeal, and Manual yielded, though with a very ill grace, to the necessity of the case.

"Go, then, and tell him that we will surrender as prisoners of war," he said, "on the conditions that he grants me my side-arms, and that suitable care shall be taken of the sick—be particular to call them sick—for some lucky accident may yet occur before the compact is ratified, and I would not have him learn our loss."

Griffith, without waiting for a second bidding, hastened to Borroughcliffe with his intelligence.

"His side-arms!" repeated the soldier, when the other had done; "what are they, I pray thee—a marlinespike! For if his equipments be no better than thine own, my worthy prisoner, there is little need to quarrel about their ownership."

"Had I but ten of my meanest men, armed with such half-pikes, and Captain Borroughcliffe and his party were put at deadly strife with us," retorted Griffith, "he might find occasion to value our weapons more highly."

"Four such fiery gentlemen as yourself would have routed my command," returned Borroughcliffe, with undisturbed composure. "I trembled for my ranks when I saw you coming out of the smoke like a blazing comet from behind a cloud! and I shall never think of somersets without returning inward thanks to their inventor. But our treaty is made; let your comrades come forth and pile their arms."

Griffith communicated the result to the captain of marines, when the latter led the remnant of his party out of his sunken fortress into the open air.

The men, who had manifested throughout the whole business that cool subordination and unyielding front, mixed with the dauntless spirit that to this day distinguishes the corps of which they were members, followed their commander in sullen silence, and stacked their arms with as much regularity and precision as if they had been ordered to relieve themselves after a march. When this necessary preliminary had been observed, Borroughcliffe unmasked his forces, and our adventurers found themselves once more in the power of the enemy, and under circumstances which rendered the prospect of a speedy release from their captivity nearly hopeless.



CHAPTER XX.

If your father will do me any honor, so; If not, let him kill the next Percy himself: I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you. Falstaff.

Manual cast sundry discontented and sullen looks from his captors to the remnant of his own command, while the process of pinioning the latter was conducted, with much discretion, under the directions of Sergeant Drill, when meeting, in one of his dissatisfied glances, with the pale and disturbed features of Griffith, he gave vent to his ill- humor, by saying:

"This results from neglecting the precautions of military discipline. Had the command been with men, who, I may say, without boasting, have been accustomed to the duties of the field, proper pickets would have been posted, and instead of being caught like so many rabbits in a burrow, to be smoked out with brimstone, we should have had an open field for the struggle; or we might have possessed ourselves of these walls, which I could have made good for two hours at least, against the best regiment that ever wore King George's facings."

"Defend the outworks before retreating to the citadel!" cried Borroughcliffe; "'tis the game of war, and shows science: but had you kept closer to your burrow, the rabbits might now have all been frisking about in that pleasant abode. The eyes of a timid hind were greeted this morning, while journeying near this wood, with a passing sight of armed men in strange attire; and as he fled, with an intent of casting himself into the sea, as fear will sometimes urge one of his kind to do, he luckily encountered me on the cliffs, who humanely saved his life, by compelling him to conduct us hither. There is often wisdom in science, my worthy contemporary in arms; but there is sometimes safety in ignorance."

"You have succeeded, sir, and have a right to be pleasant," said Manual, seating himself gloomily on a fragment of the ruin, and fastening his looks on the melancholy spectacle of the lifeless bodies, as they were successively brought from the vault and placed at his feet; "but these men have been my own children, and you will excuse me if I cannot retort your pleasantries. Ah! Captain Borroughcliffe, you are a soldier, and know how to value merit. I took those very fellows, who sleep on these stones so quietly, from the hands of nature, and made them the pride of our art. They were no longer men, but brave lads, who ate and drank, wheeled and marched, loaded and fired, laughed or were sorrowful, spoke or were silent, only at my will. As for soul, there was but one among them all, and that was in my keeping! Groan, my children, groan freely now; there is no longer a reason to be silent. I have known a single musket-bullet cut the buttons from the coats of five of them in a row, without raising the skin of a man! I could ever calculate, with certainty, how many it would be necessary to expend in all regular service; but this accursed banditti business has robbed me of the choicest of my treasures. You stand at ease now, my children; groan, it will soften your anguish."

Borroughcliffe appeared to participate, in some degree, in the feelings of his captive, and he made a few appropriate remarks in the way of condolence, while he watched the preparations that were making by his own men to move. At length his orderly announced that substitutes for barrows were provided to sustain the wounded, and inquired if it were his pleasure to return to their quarters.

"Who has seen the horse?" demanded the captain; "which way did they march? Have they gained any tidings of the discovery of this party of the enemy?"

"Not from us, your honor," returned the sergeant; "they had ridden along the coast before we left the cliffs, and it was said their officer intended to scour the shore for several miles, and spread the alarm."

"Let him; it is all such gay gallants are good for. Drill, honor is almost as scarce an article with our arms just now as promotion. We seem but the degenerate children of the heroes of Poictiers;—you understand me, sergeant?"

"Some battle fou't by his majesty's troops against the French, your honor," returned the orderly, a little at a loss to comprehend the expression of his officer's eye.

"Fellow, you grow dull on victory," exclaimed Borroughcliffe: "come hither, I would give you orders. Do you think, Mister Drill, there is more honor, or likely to be more profit, in this little morning's amusement than you and I can stand under?"

"I should not, your honor: we have both pretty broad shoulders——"

"That are not weakened by undue burdens of this nature," Interrupted his captain, significantly: "if we let the news of this affair reach the ears of those hungry dragoons, they would charge upon us open-mouthed, like a pack of famished beagles, and claim at least half the credit, and certainly all the profit."

"But, your honor, there was not a man of them even——"

"No matter, Drill; I've known troops that have been engaged, and have suffered, cheated out of their share of victory by a well-worded despatch. You know, fellow, that in the smoke and confusion of a battle, a man can only see what passes near him, and common prudence requires that he only mention in his official letters what he knows can't be easily contradicted. Thus your Indians, and, indeed, all allies, are not entitled to the right of a general order, any more than to the right of a parade. Now, I dare say, you have heard of a certain battle of Blenheim?"

"Lord! your honor, 'tis the pride of the British army, that and the Culloden! 'Twas when the great Corporal John beat the French king, and all his lords and nobility, with half his nation in arms to back him."

"Ay! there is a little of the barrack readings in the account, but it is substantially true; know you how many French were in the field that day, Mister Drill?"

"I have never seen the totals of their muster, sir, in print; but, judging by the difference betwixt the nations, I should suppose some hundreds of thousands."

"And yet, to oppose this vast army, the duke had only ten or twelve thousand well-fed Englishmen! You look astounded, sergeant!"

"Why, your honor, that does seem rather an over-match for an old soldier to swallow; the random shot would sweep away so small a force."

"And yet the battle was fought, and the victory won! but the Duke of Marlborough had a certain Mr. Eugene, with some fifty or sixty thousand High-Dutchers, to back him. You never heard of Mr. Eugene?"

"Not a syllable, your honor; I always thought that Corporal John——"

"Was a gallant and great general; you thought right, Mister Drill. So would a certain nameless gentleman be also, if his majesty would sign a commission to that effect. However, a majority is on the high road to a regiment, and with even a regiment a man is comfortable! In plain English, Mister Drill, we must get our prisoners into the abbey with as little noise as possible, in order that the horse may continue their gambols along the coast, without coming to devour our meal. All the fuss must be made at the war-office: for that trifle you may trust me; I think I know who holds a quill that is as good in its way as the sword he wears. Drill is a short name, and can easily be written within the folds of a letter."

"Lord, your honor!" said the gratified halberdier, "I'm sure such an honor is more—but your honor can ever command me!"

"I do; and it is to be close, and to make your men keep close, until it shall be time to speak, when I pledge myself there shall be noise enough." Borroughcliffe shook his head, with a grave air, as he continued: "It has been a devil of a bloody fight, sergeant! look at the dead and wounded; a wood on each flank—supported by a ruin in the centre. Oh! ink—ink can be spilt on the details with great effect. Go, fellow, and prepare to march."

Thus enlightened on the subject of his commander's ulterior views, the non-commissioned agent of the captain's wishes proceeded to give suitable instructions to the rest of the party, and to make the more immediate preparations for a march. The arrangements were soon completed. The bodies of the slain were left unsheltered, the seclusion of the ruin being deemed a sufficient security against the danger of any discovery, until darkness should favor their removal, In conformity with Borroughcliffe's plan to monopolize the glory. The wounded were placed on rude litters composed of the muskets and blankets of the prisoners, when the conquerors and vanquished moved together in a compact body from the ruin, in such a manner as to make the former serve as a mask to conceal the latter from the curious gaze of any casual passenger. There was but little, indeed, to apprehend on this head, for the alarm and terror, consequent on the exaggerated reports that flew through the country, effectually prevented any intruders on the usually quiet and retired domains of St. Ruth.

The party was emerging from the wood, when the cracking of branches, and rustling of dried leaves, announced, however, that an interruption of some sort was about to occur.

"If it should be one of their rascally patrols!" exclaimed Borroughcliffe, with very obvious displeasure; "they trample like a regiment of cavalry! but, gentlemen, you will acknowledge yourselves, that we were retiring from the field of battle when we met the reinforcement, if it should prove to be such."

"We are not disposed, sir, to deny you the glory of having achieved your victory single-handed," said Griffith, glancing his eyes uneasily in the direction of the approaching sounds, expecting to see the Pilot issue from the thicket in which he seemed to be entangled, instead of any detachment of his enemies.

"Clear the way, Caesar!" cried a voice at no great distance from them; "break through the accursed vines on my right, Pompey!—press forward, my fine fellows, or we may be too late to smell even the smoke of the fight."

"Hum!" ejaculated the captain, with his philosophic indifference of manner entirely re-established, "this must be a Roman legion just awoke from a trance of some seventeen centuries, and that the voice of a centurion. We will halt, Mister Drill, and view the manner of an ancient march!"

While the captain was yet speaking, a violent effort disengaged the advancing party from the thicket of brambles in which they had been entangled, when two blacks, each bending under a load of firearms, preceded Colonel Howard, into the clear space where Borroughcliffe had halted his detachment. Some little time was necessary to enable the veteran to arrange his disordered dress, and to remove the perspiring effects of the unusual toil from his features, before he could observe the addition to the captain's numbers.

"We heard you fire," cried the old soldier, making, at the same time, the most diligent application of his bandana, "and I determined to aid you with a sortie, which, when judiciously timed, has been the means of raising many a siege; though, had Montcalm rested quietly within his walls, the plains of Abr'am might never have drunk his blood."

"Oh! his decision was soldierly, and according to all rules of war," exclaimed Manual; "and had I followed his example, this day might have produced a different tale!"

"Why, who have we here!" cried the colonel, in astonishment; "who is it that pretends to criticise battles and sieges, dressed in such a garb?"

"Tis a dux incognitorum, my worthy host," said Borroughcliffe; "which means, in our English language, a captain of marines in the service of the American Congress."

"What! have you then met the enemy? ay! and by the fame of the immortal Wolfe, you have captured them!" cried the delighted veteran. "I was pressing on with a part of my garrison to your assistance, for I had seen that you were marching in this direction, and even the report of a few muskets was heard."

"A few!" interrupted the conqueror; "I know not what you call a few, my gallant and ancient friend: you may possibly have shot at each other by the week in the days of Wolfe, and Abercrombie, and Braddock; but I too have seen smart firing, and can hazard an opinion in such matters There was as pretty a roll made by firearms at the battles on the Hudson as ever rattled from a drum; it is all over, and many live to talk of it, but this has been the most desperate affair, for the numbers, I ever was engaged in! I speak always with a reference to the numbers. The wood is pretty well sprinkled with dead; and we have contrived to bring off a few of the desperately wounded with us, as you may perceive."

"Bless me!" exclaimed the surprised veteran, "that such an engagement should happen within musket-shot of the abbey, and I know so little of it! My faculties are on the wane, I fear, for the time has been when a single discharge would rouse me from the deepest sleep."

"The bayonet is a silent weapon," returned the composed captain, with a significant wave of his hand; "'tis the Englishman's pride, and every experienced officer knows that one thrust from it is worth the fire of a whole platoon."

"What, did you come to the charge!" cried the colonel; "by the Lord, Borroughcliffe, my gallant young friend, I would have given twenty tierces of rice, and two able-bodied negroes, to have seen the fray!"

"It would have been a pleasant spectacle to witness, sans disputation," returned the captain; "but victory is ours without the presence of Achilles, this time. I have them, all that survive the affair; at least, all that have put foot on English soil."

"Ay! and the king's cutter has brought in the schooner!" added Colonel Howard. "Thus perish all rebellion for ever more! Where's Kit? my kinsman, Mr. Christopher Dillon; I would ask him what the laws of the realm next prescribe to loyal subjects. Here will be work for the jurors of Middlesex, Captain Borroughcliffe, if not for a secretary of state's warrant. Where is Kit, my kinsman; the ductile, the sagacious, the loyal Christopher?"

"The Cacique 'non est,' as more than one bailiff has said of sundry clever fellows in our regiment, when there has been a pressing occasion for their appearance," said the soldier; "but the cornet of horse has given me reason to believe that his provincial lordship, who repaired on board the cutter to give intelligence of the position of the enemy, continued there to share the dangers and honors of naval combat."

"Ay, 'tis like him!" cried the colonel, rubbing his hands with glee; "'tis like him! he has forgotten the law and his peaceful occupations, at the sounds of military preparation, and has carried the head of a statesman into the fight, with the ardor and thoughtlessness of a boy."

"The Cacique is a man of discretion," observed the captain, with all his usual dryness of manner, "and will, doubtless, recollect his obligations to posterity and himself, though he be found entangled in the mazes of a combat. But I marvel that he does not return, for some time has now elapsed since the schooner struck her flag, as my own eyes have witnessed."

"You will pardon me, gentlemen," said Griffith, advancing towards them with uncontrollable interest; "but I have unavoidably heard part of your discourse, and cannot think you will find it necessary to withhold the whole truth from a disarmed captive: say you that a schooner has been captured this morning?"

"It is assuredly true," said Borroughcliffe, with a display of nature and delicacy in his manner that did his heart infinite credit; "but I forbore to tell you, because I thought your own misfortunes would be enough for one time. Mr. Griffith, this gentleman is Colonel Howard, to whose hospitality you will be indebted for some favors before we separate."

"Griffith!" echoed the colonel, in quick reply, "Griffith! what a sight for my old eyes to witness!—the child of worthy, gallant, loyal Hugh Griffith a captive, and taken in arms against his prince! Young man, young man, what would thy honest father, what would his bosom friend, my own poor brother Harry, have said, had it pleased God that they had survived to witness this burning shame and lasting stigma on thy respectable name?"

"Had my father lived, he would now have been upholding the independence of his native land," said the young man, proudly. "I wish to respect even the prejudices of Colonel Howard, and beg he will forbear urging a subject on which I fear we never shall agree."

"Never, while thou art to be found in the ranks of rebellion!" cried the colonel. "Oh! boy! boy! how I could have loved and cherished thee, if the skill and knowledge obtained in the service of thy prince were now devoted to the maintenance of his unalienable rights! I loved thy father, worthy Hugh, even as I loved my own brother Harry."

"And his son should still be dear to you," interrupted Griffith, taking the reluctant hand of the colonel into both his own.

"Ah, Edward, Edward!" continued the softened veteran, "how many of my day-dreams have been destroyed by thy perversity! nay, I know not that Kit, discreet and loyal as he is, could have found such a favor in my eyes as thyself; there is a cast of thy father in that face and smile, Ned, that might have won me to anything short of treason—and then Cicely, provoking, tender, mutinous, kind affectionate, good Cicely, would have been a link to unite us forever."

The youth cast a hasty glance at the deliberate Borroughcliffe, who, if he had obeyed the impatient expression of his eye, would have followed the party that was slowly bearing the wounded towards the abbey, before he yielded to his feelings, and answered:

"Nay, sir; let this then be the termination of our misunderstanding— your lovely niece shall be that link, and you shall be to me as your friend Hugh would have been had he lived, and to Cecilia twice a parent."

"Boy, boy," said the veteran, averting his face to conceal the working of his muscles, "you talk idly; my word is now plighted to my kinsman Kit, and thy scheme is impracticable."

"Nothing is impracticable, sir, to youth and enterprise, when aided by age and experience like yours," returned Griffith; "this war must soon terminate."

"This war!" echoed the colonel, shaking loose the grasp which Griffith held on his arm; "ay! what of this war, young man? Is it not an accursed attempt to deny the rights of our gracious sovereign, and to place tyrants, reared in kennels, on the throne of princes! a scheme to elevate the wicked at the expense of the good! a project to aid unrighteous ambition, under the mask of sacred liberty and the popular cry of equality! as if there could be liberty without order! or equality of rights, where the privileges of the sovereign are not as sacred as those of the people!"

"You judge us harshly, Colonel Howard," said Griffith.

"I judge you!" interrupted the old soldier, who, by this time, thought the youth resembled any one rather than his friend Hugh; "it is not my province to judge you at all; if it were!—but the time will come, the time will come. I am a patient man, and can wait the course of things; yes, yes, age cools the blood, and we learn to suppress the passions and impatience of youth: but if the ministry would issue a commission of justice for the colonies, and put the name of old George Howard in it, I am a dog, if there should be a rebel alive in twelve months. Sir," turning sternly to Borroughcliffe, "in such a case, I could prove a Roman, and hang—hang—yes, I do think, sir, I could hang my kinsman, Mr. Christopher Dillon!"

"Spare the Cacique such unnatural elevation before his time," returned the captain with a grave wave of the hand: "behold," pointing towards the wood, "there is a more befitting subject for the gallows! Mr. Griffith, yonder man calls himself your comrade?"

The eyes of Colonel Howard and Griffith followed the direction of his finger, and the latter instantly recognized the Pilot, standing in the skirts of the wood, with his arms folded, apparently surveying the condition of his friends.

"That man," said Griffith, in confusion, and hesitating to utter even the equivocal truth that suggested itself, "that man does not belong to our ship's company."

"And yet he has been seen in your company," returned the incredulous Borroughcliffe; "he was the spokesman in last night's examination, Colonel Howard, and, doubtless, commands the rear-guard of the rebels."

"You say true," cried the veteran; "Pompey! Caesar! present! fire!"

The blacks started at the sudden orders of their master, of whom they stood in the deepest awe; and, presenting their muskets, they averted their faces, and, shutting their eyes, obeyed the bloody mandate.

"Charge!" shouted the colonel, flourishing the ancient sword with which he had armed himself, and pressing forward with all the activity that a recent fit of the gout would allow, "charge, and exterminate the dogs with the bayonet! push on, Pompey—dress, boys, dress."

"If your friend stands this charge," said Borroughcliffe to Griffith, with unmoved composure, "his nerves are made of iron; such a charge would break the Coldstreams; with Pompey in the ranks!"

"I trust in God," cried Griffith, "he will have forbearance enough to respect the weakness of Colonel Howard!—he presents a pistol!"

"But he will not fire; the Romans deem it prudent to halt; nay, by heaven, they countermarch to the rear. Holla! Colonel Howard, my worthy host, fall back on your reinforcements; the wood is full of armed men; they cannot escape us; I only wait for the horse to cut off the retreat."

The veteran, who had advanced within a short distance of the single man who thus deliberately awaited the attack, halted at this summons; and by a glance of his eye, ascertained that he stood alone. Believing the words of Borroughcliffe to be true, he slowly retired, keeping his face manfully towards his enemy, until he gained the support of the captain.

"Recall the troops, Borroughcliffe!" he cried, "and let us charge into the wood; they will fly before his majesty's arms like guilty scoundrels, as they are. As for the negroes, I'll teach the black rascals to desert their master at such a moment. They say Fear is pale, but, damme, Borroughcliffe, if I don't believe his skin is black."

"I have seen him of all colors; blue, white, black, and particolored," said the captain. "I must take the command of matters on myself, however, my excellent host; let us retire into the abbey, and trust me to cut off the remainder of the rebels."

In this arrangement the colonel reluctantly acquiesced, and the three followed the soldier to the dwelling, at a pace that was adapted to the infirmities of its master. The excitement of the onset, and the current of his ideas, had united, however, to banish every amicable thought from the breast of the colonel, and he entered the abbey with a resolute determination of seeing justice dealt to Griffith and his companions, even though it should push them to the foot of the gallows.

As the gentlemen disappeared from his view, among the shrubbery of the grounds, the Pilot replaced the weapon that was hanging from his hand, in his bosom, and, turning with a saddened and thoughtful brow, he slowly re-entered the wood.



CHAPTER XXI

——"When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say. These are their reasons,—They are natural, For, I believe they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon." Casca.

The reader will discover, by referring to the time consumed in the foregoing events, that the Ariel, with her prize, did not anchor in the bay already mentioned, until Griffith and his party had been for several hours in the custody of their enemies. The supposed capture of the rebel schooner was an incident that excited but little interest, and no surprise, among a people who were accustomed to consider their seamen as invincible; and Barnstable had not found it a difficult task to practise his deception on the few rustics whom curiosity induced to venture alongside the vessels during the short continuance of daylight. When, however, the fogs of evening began to rise along the narrow basin, and the curvatures of its margin were lost in the single outline of its dark and gloomy border, the young seaman thought it time to apply himself in earnest to his duty. The Alacrity, containing all his own crew, together with the Ariel's wounded, was gotten silently under way; and driving easily before the heavy air that swept from the land, she drifted from the harbor, until the open sea lay before her, when her sails were spread, and she continued to make the best of her way in quest of the frigate. Barnstable had watched this movement with breathless anxiety; for on an eminence that completely commanded the waters to some distance, a small but rude battery had been erected for the purpose of protecting the harbor against the depredations and insults of the smaller vessels of the enemy; and a guard of sufficient force to manage the two heavy guns it contained was maintained in the work at all times. He was ignorant how far his stratagem had been successful, and it was only when he heard the fluttering of the Alacrity's canvas, as she opened it to the breeze, he felt that he was yet secure.

"'Twill reach the Englishmen's ears," said the boy Merry, who stood on the forecastle of the schooner, by the side of his commander, listening with breathless interest to the sounds; "they set a sentinel on the point, as the sun went down, and if he is a trifle better than a dead man, or a marine asleep, he will suspect something is wrong."

"Never!" returned Barnstable, with a long breath, that announced all his apprehensions were removed; "he will be more likely to believe it a mermaid fanning herself this cool evening, than to suspect the real fact. What say you, Master Coffin? will the soldier smell the truth?"

"They're a dumb race," said the cockswain, casting his eyes over his shoulders, to ascertain that none of their own marine guard was near him; "now, there was our sergeant, who ought to know something, seeing that he has been afloat these four years, maintained, dead in the face and eyes of what every man, who has ever doubled Good Hope, knows to be true, that there was no such vessel to be fallen in with in them seas, as the Flying Dutchman! and then, again, when I told him that he was a 'know-nothing,' and asked him if the Dutchman was a more unlikely thing than that there should be places where the inhabitants split the year into two watches, and had day for six months, and night the rest of the time, the greenhorn laughed in my face, and I do believe he would have told me I lied, but for one thing."

"And what might that be?" asked Barnstable, gravely.

"Why, sir," returned Tom, stretching his bony fingers, as he surveyed his broad palm, by the little light that remained, "though I am a peaceable man, I can be roused."

"And you have seen the Flying Dutchman?"

"I never doubled the east cape; though I can find my way through Le Maire in the darkest night that ever fell from the heavens; but I have seen them that have seen her, and spoken her, too."

"Well, be it so; you must turn flying Yankee, yourself, to-night, Master Coffin. Man your boat at once, sir, and arm your crew."

The cockswain paused a moment before he proceeded to obey this unexpected order, and, pointing towards the battery, he inquired, with infinite phlegm:

"For shore-work, sir? Shall we take the cutlashes and pistols? or shall we want the pikes?"

"There may be soldiers in our way, with their bayonets," said Barnstable, musing; "arm as usual, but throw a few long pikes into the boat; and harkye, Master Coffin, out with your tub and whale-line: for I see you have rigged yourself anew in that way."

The cockswain, who was moving from the forecastle, turned short at this new mandate, and with an air of remonstrance, ventured to say:

"Trust an old whaler, Captain Barnstable, who has been used to these craft all his life. A whale-boat is made to pull with a tub and line in it, as naturally as a ship is made to sail with ballast, and——"

"Out with it, out with it," interrupted the other, with an impatient gesture, that his cockswain knew signified a positive determination. Heaving a sigh at what he deemed his commander's prejudice, Tom applied himself without further delay to the execution of the orders. Barnstable laid his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the boy, and led him to the stern of his little vessel, in profound silence. The canvas hood that covered the entrance to the cabin was thrown partly aside; and by the light of the lamp that was burning in the small apartment, it was easy to overlook, from the deck, what was passing beneath them. Dillon sat supporting his head with his two hands, in a manner that shaded his face, but in an attitude that denoted deep and abstracted musing.

"I would that I could see the face of my prisoner," said Barnstable, in an undertone, that was audible only to his companion. "The eye of a man is a sort of lighthouse, to tell one how to steer into the haven of his confidence, boy."

"And sometimes a beacon, sir, to warn you there is no safe anchorage near him," returned the ready boy.

"Rogue!" muttered Barnstable, "your cousin Kate spoke there."

"If my cousin Plowden were here, Mr. Barnstable, I know that her opinion of yon gentleman would not be at all more favorable."

"And yet, I have determined to trust him! Listen, boy, and tell me if I am wrong; you have a quick wit, like some others of your family, and may suggest something advantageous." The gratified midshipman swelled with the conscious pleasure of possessing his commander's confidence, and followed to the taffrail, over which Barnstable leaned, while he delivered the remainder of his communication. "I have gathered from the 'longshoremen who have come off this evening, to stare at the vessel which the rebels have been able to build, that a party of seamen and marines have been captured in an old ruin near the Abbey of St. Ruth, this very day."

"'Tis Mr. Griffith!" exclaimed the boy.

"Ay! the wit of your cousin Katherine was not necessary to discover that. Now, I have proposed to this gentleman with the Savannah face, that he should go into the abbey, and negotiate an exchange. I will give him for Griffith, and the crew of the Alacrity for Manual's command and the Tigers."

"The Tigers!" cried the lad, with emotion; "have they got my Tigers, too? Would to God that Mr. Griffith had permitted me to land!"

"It was no boy's work they were about, and room was scarcer in their boat than live lumber. But this Mr. Dillon has accepted my proposition, and has pledged himself that Griffith shall return within an hour after he is permitted to enter the Abbey; will he redeem his honor from the pledge?"

"He may," said Merry, musing a moment; "for I believe he thinks the presence of Mr. Griffith under the same roof with Miss Howard a thing to be prevented, if possible; he may be true in this instance, though he has a hollow look."

"He has bad-looking lighthouses, I will own," said Barnstable; "and yet he is a gentleman, and promises fair; 'tis unmanly to suspect him in such a matter, and I will have faith! Now listen, sir. The absence of older heads must throw great responsibility on your young shoulders; watch that battery as closely as if you were at the mast-head of your frigate, on the lookout for an enemy; the instant you see lights moving in it, cut, and run into the offing; you will find me somewhere under the cliffs, and you will stand off and on, keeping the abbey in sight, until you fall in with us."

Merry gave an attentive ear to these and divers other solemn injunctions that he received from his commander, who, having sent the officer next to himself in authority in charge of the prize (the third in command being included in the list of the wounded), was compelled to entrust his beloved schooner to the vigilance of a lad whose years gave no promise of the experience and skill that he actually possessed.

When his admonitory instructions were ended, Barnstable stepped again to the opening in the cabin-hood, and, for a single moment before he spoke, once more examined the countenance of his prisoner, with a keen eye. Dillon had removed his hands from before his sallow features; and, as if conscious of the scrutiny his looks were to undergo, had concentrated the whole expression of his forbidding aspect in a settled gaze of hopeless submission to his fate. At least, so thought his captor, and the idea touched some of the finer feelings in the bosom of the generous young seaman. Discarding, instantly, every suspicion of his prisoner's honor, as alike unworthy of them both, Barnstable summoned him, in a cheerful voice, to the boat. There was a flashing of the features of Dillon, at this call, which gave an indefinable expression to his countenance, that again startled the sailor; but it was so very transient, and could so easily be mistaken for a smile of pleasure at his promised liberation, that the doubts it engendered passed away almost as speedily as the equivocal expression itself. Barnstable was in the act of following his companion into the boat, when he felt himself detained by a slight hold of his arm.

"What would you have?" he asked of the midshipman, who had given him the signal.

"Do not trust too much to that Dillon, sir," returned the anxious boy, in a whisper; "if you had seen his face, as I did, when the binnacle light fell upon it, as he came up the cabin ladder, you would put no faith in him."

"I should have seen no beauty," said the generous lieutenant, laughing; "but there is long Tom, as hard-featured a youth of two score and ten as ever washed in brine, who has a heart as big, ay, bigger than that of a kraaken. A bright watch to you, boy, and remember a keen eye on the battery." As he was yet speaking, Barnstable crossed the gunwale of his little vessel, and it was not until he was seated by the side of his prisoner that he continued, aloud: "Cast the stops off your sails, Mr. Merry, and see all clear to make a run of everything; recollect, you are short-handed, sir. God bless ye! and d'ye hear? if there is a man among you who shuts more than one eye at a time, I'll make him, when I get back, open both wider than if Tom Coffin's friend, the Flying Dutchman, was booming down upon him. God bless ye, Merry, my boy; give 'em the square-sail, if this breeze off-shore holds on till morning:—shove off."

As Barnstable gave the last order, he fell back on his seat, and, drawing back his boat-cloak around him maintained a profound silence, until they had passed the two small headlands that fanned the mouth of the harbor. The men pulled, with muffled oars, their long, vigorous strokes, and the boat glided with amazing rapidity past the objects that could be yet indistinctly seen along the dim shore. When, however, they had gained the open ocean, and the direction of their little bark was changed to one that led them in a line with the coast, and within the shadows of the cliffs, the cockswain, deeming that the silence was no longer necessary to their safety, ventured to break it, as follows:

"A square-sail is a good sail to carry on a craft, dead afore it, and in a heavy sea; but if fifty years can teach a man to know the weather, it's my judgment that should the Ariel break ground after the night turns at eight bells, she'll need her mainsail to hold her up to her course."

The lieutenant started at this sudden interruption, and casting his cloak from his shoulders, he looked abroad on the waters, as if seeking those portentous omens which disturbed the imagination of his cockswain.

"How now, Tom," he said, sharply, "have ye turned croaker in your old age? what see you, to cause such an old woman's ditty?"

"'Tis no song of an old woman," returned the cockswain with solemn earnestness, "but the warning of an old man; and one who has spent his days where there were no hills to prevent the winds of heaven from blowing on him, unless they were hills of salt water and foam. I judge, sir, there'll be a heavy northeaster setting in upon us afore the morning watch is called."

Barnstable knew the experience of his old messmate too well not to feel uneasiness at such an opinion, delivered in so confident a manner; but after again surveying the horizon, the heavens, and the ocean, he said, with a continued severity of manner:

"Your prophecy is idle, this time, Master Coffin; everything looks like a dead calm. This swell is what is left from the last blow; the mist overhead is nothing but the nightly fog, and you can see, with own eyes, that it is driving seaward; even this land-breeze is nothing but the air of the ground mixing with that of the ocean; it is heavy with dew and fog, but it's as sluggish as a Dutch galliot."

"Ay, sir, it is damp, and there is little of it," rejoined Tom; "but as it comes only from the shore, so it never goes far on the water, It is hard to learn the true signs of the weather, Captain Barnstable, and none get to know them well, but such as study little else or feel but little else. There is only One who can see the winds of heaven, or who can tell when a hurricane is to begin, or where it will end. Still, a man isn't like a whale or a porpoise, that takes the, air in his nostrils, and never knows whether it is a southeaster or a northwester that he feeds upon. Look, broad-off to leeward, sir; see the streak of clear sky shining under the mists; take an old seafaring man's word for it, Captain Barnstable, that whenever the light shines out of the heavens in that fashion, 'tis never done for nothing; besides, the sun set in a dark bank of clouds, and the little moon we had was dry and windy."

Barnstable listened attentively, and with increasing concern, for he well knew that his cockswain possessed a quick and almost unerring judgment of the weather, notwithstanding the confused medley of superstitious omens and signs with which it was blended; but again throwing himself back in his boat, he muttered:

"Then let it blow; Griffith is worth a heavier risk, and if the battery can't be cheated, it can be carried."

Nothing further passed on the state of the weather. Dillon had not ventured a single remark since he entered the boat, and the cockswain had the discretion to understand that his officer was willing to be left to his own thoughts. For nearly an hour they pursued their way with diligence; the sinewy seamen, who wielded the oars, urging their light boat along the edge of the surf with unabated velocity, and apparently with untired exertions. Occasionally, Barnstable would cast an inquiring glance at the little inlets that they passed, or would note, with a seaman's eye, the small portions of sandy beach that were scattered here and there along the rocky boundaries of the coast. One in particular, a deeper inlet than common, where a run of fresh water was heard gurgling as it met the tide, he pointed out to his cockswain, by significant but silent gestures, as a place to be especially noted. Tom, who understood the signal as intended for his own eye alone, made his observations on the spot with equal taciturnity, but with all the minuteness that would distinguish one long accustomed to find his way, whether by land or water, by landmarks and the bearings of different objects. Soon after this silent communication between the lieutenant and his cockswain, the boat was suddenly turned, and was in the act of dashing upon the spit of sand before it, when Barnstable checked the movement by his voice:

"Hold water!" he said; "'tis the sound of oars!"

The seamen held their boat at rest, while a deep attention was given to the noise that had alarmed the ears of their commander.

"See, sir," said the cockswain, pointing towards the eastern horizon; "it is just rising into the streak of light to seaward of us—now it settles in the trough—ah! here you have it again!"

"By heavens!" cried Barnstable, "'tis a man-of-war's stroke it pulls; I saw the oar-blades as they fell! and, listen to the sound! neither your fisherman nor your smuggler pulls such a regular oar."

Tom had bowed his head nearly to the water, in the act of listening, and now raising himself, he spoke with confidence:

"That is the Tiger; I know the stroke of her crew as well as I do of my own. Mr. Merry has made them learn the new-fashioned jerk, as they dip their blades, and they feather with such a roll in their rullocks! I could swear to the stroke."

"Hand me the night-glass," said his commander, impatiently. "I can catch them, as they are lifted into the streak. You are right, by every star in our flag, Tom!—but there is only one man in her stern-sheets. By my good eyes, I believe it is that accursed Pilot, sneaking from the land, and leaving Griffith and Manual to die in English prisons. To shore with you—beach her at once!"

The order was no sooner given than it was obeyed, and in less than two minutes the impatient Barnstable, Dillon, and the cockswain, were standing together on the sands.

The impression he had received, that his friends were abandoned to their fate by the Pilot, urged the generous young seaman to hasten the departure of his prisoner, as he was fearful every moment might interpose some new obstacle to the success of his plans.

"Mr. Dillon," he said, the instant they were landed, "I exact no new promise—your honor is already plighted——"

"If oaths can make it stronger," interrupted Dillon, "I will take them."

"Oaths cannot—the honor of a gentleman is, at all times, enough. I shall send my cockswain with you to the abbey, and you will either return with him, in person, within two hours, or give Mr. Griffith and Captain Manual to his guidance. Proceed, sir, you are conditionally free; there is an easy opening by which to ascend the cliffs."

Dillon once more thanked his generous captor, and then proceeded to force his way up the rough eminence.

"Follow, and obey his instructions," said Barnstable to his cockswain, aloud.

Tom, long accustomed to implicit obedience, handled his harpoon, and was quietly following in the footsteps of his new leader, when he felt the hand of the lieutenant on his shoulder.

"You saw where the brook emptied over the hillock of sand?" said Barnstable, in an undertone.

Tom nodded assent.

"You will find us there riding without the surf—'Twill not do to trust too much to an enemy."

The cockswain made a gesture of great significance with his weapon, that was intended to indicate the danger their prisoner would incur should he prove false; when, applying the wooden end of the harpoon to the rocks, he ascended the ravine at a rate that soon brought him to the side of his companion.



CHAPTER XXII

"Ay marry, let me have him to sit under; He's like to be a cold soldier." Falstaff.

Barnstable lingered on the sands for a few minutes, until the footsteps of Dillon and the cockswain were no longer audible, when he ordered his men to launch their boat once more into the surf. While the seamen pulled leisurely towards the place he had designated as the point where he would await the return of Tom, the lieutenant first began to entertain serious apprehensions concerning the good faith of his prisoner. Now that Dillon was beyond his control, his imagination presented, in very vivid colors, several little circumstances in the other's conduct, which might readily excuse some doubts of his good faith; and, by the time they had reached the place of rendezvous, and had cast a light grapnel into the sea, his fears had rendered him excessively uncomfortable. Leaving the lieutenant to his reflections on this unpleasant subject, we shall follow Dillon and his fearless and unsuspecting companion in their progress towards St. Ruth.

The mists to which Tom had alluded in his discussion with his commander on the state of the weather appeared to be settling nearer to the earth, and assuming more decidedly the appearance of a fog, hanging above them in sluggish volumes, but little agitated by the air. The consequent obscurity added deeply to the gloom of the night, and it would have been difficult for one less acquainted than Dillon with the surrounding localities to find the path which led to the dwelling of Colonel Howard. After some little search, this desirable object was effected; and the civilian led the way, with rapid strides, towards the abbey.

"Ay, ay!" said Tom, who followed his steps, and equaled his paces, without any apparent effort, "you shore people have an easy way to find your course and distance, when you get into the track. I was once left by the craft I belonged to, in Boston, to find my way to Plymouth, which is a matter of fifteen leagues, or thereaway; and so, finding nothing was bound up the bay, after lying-by for a week, I concluded to haul aboard my land tacks. I spent the better part of another week in a search for some hooker, on board which I might work my passage across the country, for money was as scarce then with old Tom Coffin as it is now, and is likely to be, unless the fisheries get a good luff soon; but it seems that nothing but your horse-flesh, and horned cattle, and jackasses, are privileged to do the pulling and hauling in your shore- hookers; and I was forced to pay a week's wages for a berth, besides keeping a banyan on a mouthful of bread and cheese, from the time we hove up in Boston, till we came to in Plymouth town."

"It was certainly an unreasonable exaction on the part of the wagoners, from a man in your situation," said Dillon, in a friendly, soothing tone of voice, that denoted a willingness to pursue the conversation.

"My situation was that of a cabin passenger," returned the cockswain; "for there was but one hand forward, besides the cattle I mentioned— that was he who steered—and an easy berth he had of it; for there his course lay atween walls of stone and fences: and, as for his reckoning, why, they had stuck up bits of stone on an end, with his day's work footed up, ready to his hand, every half league or so. Besides, the landmarks were so plenty, that a man with half an eye might steer her, and no fear of getting to leeward,"

"You must have found yourself as it were in a new world," observed Dillon.

"Why, to me it was pretty much the same as if I had been set afloat in a strange country, though I may be said to be a native of those parts, being born on the coast. I had often heard shoremen say, that there was as much 'arth as water in the world, which I always set down as a rank lie, for I've sailed with a flowing sheet months an-end without falling in with as much land or rock as would answer a gull to lay its eggs on; but I will own, that atween Boston and Plymouth, we were out of sight of water for as much as two full watches!"

Dillon pursued this interesting subject with great diligence; and by the time they reached the wall, which enclosed the large paddock that surrounded the abbey, the cockswain was deeply involved in a discussion of the comparative magnitude of the Atlantic Ocean and the continent of America.

Avoiding the principal entrance to the building, through the great gates which communicated with the court in front, Dillon followed the windings of the wall until it led them to a wicket, which he knew was seldom closed for the night until the hour for general rest had arrived. Their way now lay in the rear of the principal edifice, and soon conducted them to the confused pile which contained the offices. The cockswain followed his companion with a confiding reliance on his knowledge and good faith, that was somewhat increased by the freedom of communication that had been maintained during their walk from the cliffs. He did not perceive anything extraordinary in the other's stopping at the room, which had been provided as a sort of barracks for the soldiers of Captain Borroughcliffe. A conference which took place between Dillon and the sergeant was soon ended, when the former beckoned to the cockswain to follow, and taking a circuit round the whole of the offices, they entered the abbey together, by the door through which the ladies had issued when in quest of the three prisoners, as has been already related.—After a turn or two among the narrow passages of that part of the edifice, Tom, whose faith in the facilities of land navigation began to be a little shaken, found himself following his guide through a long, dark gallery, that was terminated at the end toward which they were approaching, by a half-open door, that admitted a glimpse into a well- lighted and comfortable apartment. To this door Dillon hastily advanced, and, throwing it open, the cockswain enjoyed a full view of the very scene that we described in introducing Colonel Howard to the acquaintance of the reader, and under circumstances of great similitude. The cheerful fire of coal, the strong and glaring lights, the tables of polished mahogany, and the blushing fluids, were still the same in appearance, while the only perceptible change was in the number of those who partook of the cheer. The master of the mansion and Borroughcliffe were seated opposite to each other, employed in discussing the events of the day, and diligently pushing to and fro the glittering vessel, that contained a portion of the generous liquor they both loved so well; a task which each moment rendered lighter.

"If Kit would but return," exclaimed the veteran, whose back was to the opening door, "bringing with, him his honest brows encircled, as they will be or ought to be, with laurel, I should be the happiest old fool, Borroughcliffe, in his majesty's realm of Great Britain!"

The captain, who felt the necessity for the unnatural restraint he had imposed on his thirst to be removed by the capture of his enemies, pointed towards the door with one hand, while he grasped the sparkling reservoir of the "south side" with the other, and answered:

"Lo! the Cacique himself! his brow inviting the diadem—ha! who have we in his highness' train? By the Lord, sir Cacique, if you travel with a body-guard of such grenadiers, old Frederick of Prussia himself will have occasion to envy you the corps! a clear six-footer in nature's stockings! and the arms as unique as the armed!"

The colonel did not, however, attend to half of his companion's exclamations, but turning, he beheld the individual he had so much desired, and received him with a delight proportioned to the unexpectedness of the pleasure. For several minutes, Dillon was compelled to listen to the rapid questions of his venerable relative, to all of which he answered with a prudent reserve, that might, in some measure, have been governed by the presence of the cockswain. Tom stood with infinite composure, leaning on his harpoon, and surveying, with a countenance where wonder was singularly blended with contempt, the furniture and arrangements of an apartment that was far more splendid than any he had before seen. In the mean time, Borroughcliffe entirely disregarded the private communications that passed between his host and Dillon, which gradually became more deeply interesting, and finally drew them to a distant corner of the apartment, but taking a most undue advantage of the absence of the gentleman, who had so lately been his boon companion, he swallowed one potation after another, as if a double duty had devolved on him, in consequence of the desertion of the veteran. Whenever his eye did wander from the ruby tints of his glass, it was to survey with unrepressed admiration the inches of the cockswain, about whose stature and frame there were numberless excellent points to attract the gaze of a recruiting officer. From this double pleasure, the captain was, however, at last summoned, to participate in the councils of his friends.

Dillon was spared the disagreeable duty of repeating the artful tale he had found it necessary to palm on the colonel, by the ardor of the veteran himself, who executed the task in a manner that gave to the treachery of his kinsman every appearance of a justifiable artifice and of unshaken zeal in the cause of his prince. In substance, Tom was to be detained as a prisoner, and the party of Barnstable were to be entrapped, and of course to share a similar fate. The sunken eye of Dillon cowered before the steady gaze which Borroughcliffe fastened on him, as the latter listened to the plaudits the colonel lavished on his cousin's ingenuity; but the hesitation that lingered in the soldier's manner vanished when he turned to examine their unsuspecting prisoner, who was continuing his survey of the apartment, while he innocently imagined the consultations he witnessed were merely the proper and preparatory steps to his admission into the presence of Mr. Griffith.

"Drill," said Borroughcliffe, aloud, "advance, and receive your orders." The cockswain turned quickly at this sudden mandate, and, for the first time, perceived that he had been followed into the gallery by the orderly and two files of the recruits, armed. "Take this man to the guard-room, and feed him, and see that he dies not of thirst."

There was nothing alarming in this order; and Tom was following the soldiers, in obedience to a gesture from their captain, when their steps were arrested in the gallery, by the cry of "Halt!"

"On recollection, Drill," said Borroughcliffe, in a tone from which all dictatorial sounds were banished, "show the gentleman into my own room, and see him properly supplied."

The orderly gave such an intimation of his comprehending the meaning of his officer, as the latter was accustomed to receive, when Borroughcliffe returned to his bottle, and the cockswain followed his guide, with an alacrity and good will that were not a little increased by the repeated mention of the cheer that awaited him.

Luckily for the impatience of Tom, the quarters of the captain were at hand, and the promised entertainment by no means slow in making its appearance. The former was an apartment that opened from a lesser gallery, which communicated with the principal passage already mentioned; and the latter was a bountiful but ungarnished supply of that staple of the British Isles, called roast beef; of which the kitchen of Colonel Howard was never without a due and loyal provision,—The sergeant, who certainly understood one of the signs of his captain to imply an attack on the citadel of the cockswain's brain, mingled, with his own hands, a potation that he styled a rummer of grog, and which he thought would have felled the animal itself that Tom was so diligently masticating, had it been alive and in its vigor. Every calculation that was made on the infirmity of the cockswain's intellect, under the stimulus of Jamaica, was, however, futile. He swallowed glass after glass, with prodigious relish, but, at the same time, with immovable steadiness; and the eyes of the sergeant, who felt it incumbent to do honor to his own cheer, were already glistening in his head, when, happily for the credit of his heart, a tap at the door announced the presence of his captain, and relieved him from the impending disgrace of being drunk blind by a recruit.

As Borroughcliffe entered the apartment, he commanded his orderly to retire, adding:

"Mr. Dillon will give you instructions, which you are implicitly to obey."

Drill, who had sense enough remaining to apprehend the displeasure of his officer, should the latter discover his condition, quickened his departure, and the cockswain soon found himself alone with the captain. The vigor of Tom's attacks on the remnant of the sirloin was now much abated, leaving in its stead that placid quiet which is apt to linger about the palate long after the cravings of the appetite have been appeased. He had seated himself on one of the trunks of Borroughcliffe, utterly disdaining the use of a chair; and, with the trencher in his lap, was using his own jack-knife on the dilapidated fragment of the ox, with something of that nicety with which the female ghoul of the Arabian Tales might be supposed to pick her rice with the point of her bodkin. The captain drew a seat nigh the cockswain; and, with a familiarity and kindness infinitely condescending, when the difference in their several conditions is considered, he commenced the following dialogue:

"I hope you have found your entertainment to your liking, Mr. a-a-I must own my ignorance of your name."

"Tom," said the cockswain, keeping his eyes roaming over the contents of the trencher; "commonly called long Tom, by my shipmates."

"You have sailed with discreet men, and able navigators, it will seem, as they understood longitude so well," rejoined the captain; "but you have a patronymic—I would say another name?"

"Coffin," returned the cockswain; "I'm called Tom, when there is any hurry, such as letting go the haulyards, or a sheet; long Tom, when they want to get to windward of an old seaman, by fair weather; and long Tom Coffin, when they wish to hail me, so that none of my cousins of the same name, about the islands, shall answer; for I believe the best man among them can't measure much over a fathom, taking him from his headworks to his heel."

"You are a most deserving fellow," cried Borroughcliffe, "and it is painful to think to what a fate the treachery of Mr. Dillon has consigned you."

The suspicions of Tom, if he ever entertained any, were lulled to rest too effectually by the kindness he had received, to be awakened by this equivocal lament; he therefore, after renewing his intimacy with the rummer, contented himself by saying, with a satisfied simplicity:

"I am consigned to no one, carrying no cargo but this Mr. Dillon, who is to give me Mr. Griffith in exchange, or go back to the Ariel himself, as my prisoner."

"Ah! my good friend, I fear you will find, when the time comes to make this exchange, that he will refuse to do either."

"But, I'll be d——d if he don't do one of them! My orders are to see it done, and back he goes; or Mr. Griffith, who is as good a seaman, for his years, as ever trod a deck, slips his cable from this here anchorage."

Borroughcliffe affected to eye his companion with great commiseration; an exhibition of compassion that was, however, completely lost on the cockswain, whose nerves were strung to their happiest tension by his repeated libations, while his wit was, if anything, quickened by the same cause, though his own want of guile rendered him slow to comprehend its existence in others. Perceiving it necessary to speak plainly, the captain renewed the attack in a more direct manner:

"I am sorry to say that you will not be permitted to return to the Ariel; and that your commander, Mr. Barnstable, will be a prisoner within the hour; and, in fact, that your schooner will be taken before the morning breaks."

"Who'll take her?" asked the cockswain with a grim smile, on whose feelings, however, this combination of threatened calamities was beginning to make some impression.

"You must remember that she lies immediately under the heavy guns of a battery that can sink her in a few minutes; an express has already been sent to acquaint the commander of the work with the Ariel's true character; and as the wind has already begun to blow from the ocean, her escape is impossible."

The truth, together with its portentous consequences, now began to glare across the faculties of the cockswain. He remembered his own prognostics on the weather, and the helpless situation of the schooner, deprived of more than half her crew, and left to the keeping of a boy, while her commander himself was on the eve of captivity. The trencher fell from his lap to the floor, his head sunk on his knees, his face was concealed between his broad palms, and, in spite of every effort the old seaman could make to conceal his emotion, he fairly groaned aloud.

For a moment, the better feelings of Borroughcliffe prevailed, and he paused as he witnessed this exhibition of suffering in one whose head was already sprinkled with the marks of time; but his habits, and the impressions left by many years passed in collecting victims for the wars, soon resumed their ascendency, and the recruiting officer diligently addressed himself to an improvement of his advantage.

"I pity from my heart the poor lads whom artifice or mistaken notions of duty may have led astray, and who will thus be taken in arms against their sovereign; but as they are found in the very island of Britain, they must be made examples to deter others. I fear that, unless they can make their peace with government, they will all be condemned to death."

"Let them make their peace with God, then; your government can do but little to clear the log-account of a man whose watch is up for this world."

"But, by making their peace with those who have the power, their lives may be spared," said the captain, watching, with keen eyes, the effect his words produced on the cockswain.

"It matters but little, when a man hears the messenger pipe his hammock down for the last time; he keeps his watch in another world, though he goes below in this. But to see wood and iron, that has been put together after such moulds as the Ariel's, go into strange hands, is a blow that a man may remember long after the purser's books have been squared against his name for ever! I would rather that twenty shot should strike my old carcass, than one should hull the schooner that didn't pass out above her water-line."

Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly, "I may be mistaken, after all; and, instead of putting any of you to death, they may place you all on board the prison-ships, where you may yet have a merry time of it these ten or fifteen years to come."

"How's that, shipmate!" cried the cockswain, with a start; "a prison- ship, d'ye say? you may tell them they can save the expense of one man's rations by hanging him, if they please, and that is old Tom Coffin."

"There is no answering for their caprice: to-day they may order a dozen of you to be shot for rebels; to-morrow they may choose to consider you as prisoners of war, and send you to the hulks for a dozen years."

"Tell them, brother, that I'm a rebel, will ye? and ye'll tell 'em no lie—one that has fou't them since Manly's time, in Boston Bay, to this hour. I hope the boy will blow her up! it would be the death of poor Richard Barnstable to see her in the hands of the English!"

"I know of one way," said Borroughcliffe, affecting to muse, "and but one, that will certainly avert the prison-ship; for, on second thoughts, they will hardly put you to death."

"Name it, friend," cried the cockswain, rising from his seat in evident perturbation, "and if it lies in the power of man, it shall be done."

"Nay," said the captain, dropping his hand familiarly on the shoulder of the other, who listened with the most eager attention, "'tis easily done, and no dreadful thing in itself; you are used to gunpowder, and know its smell from otto of roses!"

"Ay, ay," cried the impatient old seaman; "I have had it flashing under my nose by the hour; what then?"

"Why, then, what I have to propose will be nothing to a man like you— you found the beef wholesome, and the grog mellow!"

"Ay, ay, all well enough; but what is that to an old sailor?" asked the cockswain, unconsciously grasping the collar of Borroughcliffe's coat, in his agitation; "what then?"

The captain manifested no displeasure at this unexpected familiarity, but with suavity as he unmasked the battery, from behind which he had hitherto carried on his attacks.

"Why, then, you have only to serve your king as you have before served the Congress—and let me be the man to show you your colors."

The cockswain stared at the speaker intently, but it was evident he did not clearly comprehend the nature of the proposition, and the captain pursued the subject:

"In plain English, enlist in my company, my fine fellow, and your life and liberty are both safe."

Tom did not laugh aloud, for that was a burst of feeling in which he was seldom known to indulge; but every feature of his weatherbeaten visage contracted into an expression of bitter, ironical contempt. Borroughcliffe felt the iron fingers, that still grasped his collar, gradually tightening about his throat, like a vice; and, as the arm slowly contracted, his body was drawn, by a power that it was in vain to resist, close to that of the cockswain, who, when their faces were within a foot of each other, gave vent to his emotions in words:

"A messmate, before a shipmate; a shipmate, before a stranger; a stranger, before a dog—but a dog before a soldier!"

As Tom concluded, his nervous arm was suddenly extended to the utmost, the fingers relinquishing their grasp at the same time; and, when Borroughcliffe recovered his disordered faculties, he found himself in a distant corner of the apartment, prostrate among a confused pile of chairs, tables, and wearing-apparel. In endeavoring to rise from this humble posture, the hand of the captain fell on the hilt of his sword, which had been included in the confused assemblage of articles produced by his overthrow.

"How now, scoundrel!" he cried, baring the glittering weapon, and springing on his feet; "you must be taught your distance, I perceive."

The cockswain seized the harpoon which leaned against the wall, and dropped its barbed extremity within a foot of the breast of his assailant, with an expression of the eye that denoted the danger of a nearer approach. The captain, however, wanted not for courage, and stung to the quick by the insult he had received, he made a desperate parry, and attempted to pass within the point of the novel weapon of his adversary. The slight shock was followed by a sweeping whirl of the harpoon, and Borroughchffe found himself without arms, completely at the mercy of his foe. The bloody intentions of Tom vanished with his success; for, laying aside his weapon, he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized him with an open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain discovered his incompetency to make any defence against the strength of a man who managed him as if he had been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff, from his pockets, which appeared to contain as great a variety of small cordage as a boatswain's storeroom, and proceeded to lash the arms of the conquered soldier to the posts of his bed, with a coolness that had not been disturbed since the commencement of hostilities, a silence that seemed inflexible, and a dexterity that none but a seaman could equal. When this part of his plan was executed, Tom paused a moment, and gazed around him as if in quest of something. The naked sword caught his eye, and, with this weapon in his hand, he deliberately approached his captive, whose alarm prevented his observing that the cockswain had snapped the blade asunder from the handle, and that he had already encircled the latter with marline.

"For God's sake," exclaimed Borroughcliffe, "murder me not in cold blood!"

The silver hilt entered his mouth as the words issued from it, and the captain found, while the line was passed and repassed in repeated involutions across the back of his neck, that he was in a condition to which he often subjected his own men, when unruly, and which is universally called being "gagged." The cockswain now appeared to think himself entitled to all the privileges of a conqueror; for, taking the light in his hand, he commenced a scrutiny into the nature and quality of the worldly effects that lay at his mercy. Sundry articles, that belonged to the equipments of a soldier, were examined, and cast aside with great contempt, and divers garments of plainer exterior were rejected as unsuited to the frame of the victor. He, however, soon encountered two articles, of a metal that is universally understood. But uncertainty as to their use appeared greatly to embarrass him. The circular prongs of these curiosities were applied to either hand, to the wrists, and even to the nose, and the little wheels at their opposite extremity were turned and examined with as much curiosity and care as a savage would expend on a watch, until the idea seemed to cross the mind of the honest seaman, that they formed part of the useless trappings of a military man; and he cast them aside also, as utterly worthless. Borroughcliffe, who watched every movement of his conqueror, with a good-humor that would have restored perfect harmony between them, could he but have expressed half what he felt, witnessed the safety of a favorite pair of spurs with much pleasure, though nearly suffocated by the mirth that was unnaturally repressed. At length, the cockswain found a pair of handsomely mounted pistols, a sort of weapon with which he seemed quite familiar. They were loaded, and the knowledge of that fact appeared to remind Tom of the necessity of departing, by bringing to his recollection the danger of his commander and of the Ariel. He thrust the weapons into the canvas belt that encircled his body, and, grasping his harpoon, approached the bed, where Borroughcliffe was seated in duresse.

"Harkye, friend," said the cockswain, "may the Lord forgive you, as I do, for wishing to make a soldier of a seafaring man, and one who has followed the waters since he was an hour old, and one who hopes to die off soundings, and to be buried in brine. I wish you no harm, friend; but you'll have to keep a stopper on your conversation till such time as some of your messmates call in this way, which I hope will be as soon after I get an offing as may be."

With these amicable wishes, the cockswain departed, leaving Borroughcliffe the light, and the undisturbed possession of his apartment, though not in the most easy or the most enviable situation imaginable. The captain heard the bolt of his lock turn, and the key rattle as the cockswain withdrew it from the door—two precautionary steps, which clearly indicated that the vanquisher deemed it prudent to secure his retreat, by insuring the detention of the vanquished for at least a time.



CHAPTER XXIII.

"Whilst vengeance, in the lurid air, Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare— Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see; And look not madly wild, like thee!" Collins.

It is certain that Tom Coffin had devised no settled plan of operations, when he issued from the apartment of Borroughcliffe, if we except a most resolute determination to make the best of his way to the Ariel, and to share her fate, let it be either to sink or swim. But this was a resolution much easier formed by the honest seaman than executed, in his present situation. He would have found it less difficult to extricate a vessel from the dangerous shoals of the "Devil's Grip," than to thread the mazes of the labyrinth of passages, galleries, and apartments, in which he found himself involved. He remembered, as he expressed it to himself, in a low soliloquy, "to have run into a narrow passage from the main channel, but whether he had sheered to the starboard or larboard hand" was a material fact that had entirely escaped his memory. Tom was in that part of the building that Colonel Howard had designated as the "cloisters," and in which, luckily for him, he was but little liable to encounter any foe, the room occupied by Borroughcliffe being the only one in the entire wing that was not exclusively devoted to the service of the ladies. The circumstance of the soldier's being permitted to invade this sanctuary was owing to the necessity, on the part of Colonel Howard, of placing either Griffith, Manual, or the recruiting officer, in the vicinity of his wards, or of subjecting his prisoners to a treatment that the veteran would have thought unworthy of his name and character. This recent change in the quarters of Borroughcliffe operated doubly to the advantage of Tom, by lessening the chance of the speedy release of his uneasy captive, as well as by diminishing his own danger. Of the former circumstance he was, however, not aware: and the consideration of the latter was a sort of reflection to which the cockswain was, in no degree, addicted.

Following, necessarily, the line of the wall, he soon emerged from the dark and narrow passage in which he had first found himself, and entered the principal gallery, that communicated with all the lower apartments of that wing, as well as with the main body of the edifice. An open door, through which a strong light was glaring, at a distant end of this gallery, instantly caught his eye, and the old seaman had not advanced many steps towards it, before he discovered that he was approaching the very room which had so much excited his curiosity, and by the identical passage through which he had entered the abbey. To turn, and retrace his steps, was the most obvious course for any man to take who felt anxious to escape; but the sounds of high conviviality, bursting from the cheerful apartment, among which the cockswain thought he distinguished the name of Griffith, determined Tom to advance and reconnoitre the scene more closely. The reader will anticipate that when he paused in the shadow, the doubting old seaman stood once more near the threshold which he had so lately crossed, when conducted to the room of Borroughcliffe. The seat of that gentleman was now occupied by Dillon, and Colonel Howard had resumed his wonted station at the foot of the table. The noise was chiefly made by the latter, who had evidently been enjoying a more minute relation of the means by which his kinsman had entrapped his unwary enemy.

"A noble ruse!" cried the veteran, as Tom assumed his post, in ambush; "a most noble and ingenious ruse, and such a one as would have baffled Caesar! He must have been a cunning dog, that Caesar; but I do think, Kit, you would have been too much for him; hang me, if I don't think you would have puzzled Wolfe himself, had you held Quebec, instead of Montcalm! Ah, boy, we want you in the colonies, with the ermine over your shoulders; such men as you, cousin Christopher, are sadly, sadly wanted there to defend his majesty's rights."

"Indeed, dear sir, your partiality gives me credit for qualities I do not possess," said Dillon, dropping his eyes, perhaps with a feeling of conscious unworthiness, but with an air of much humility; "the little justifiable artifice——"

"Ay! there lies the beauty of the transaction," interrupted the colonel, shoving the bottle from him, with the free, open air of a man who never harbored disguise; "you told no lie; no mean deception, that any dog, however base and unworthy, might invent; but you practised a neat, a military, a—a—yes, a classical deception on your enemy; a classical deception, that is the very term for it! such a deception as Pompey, or Mark Antony, or—or—you know those old fellows' names, better than I do, Kit; but name the cleverest fellow that ever lived in Greece or Rome, and I shall say he is a dunce compared to you. 'Twas a real Spartan trick, both simple and honest."

It was extremely fortunate for Dillon, that the animation of his aged kinsman kept his head and body in such constant motion, during this apostrophe, as to intercept the aim that the cockswain was deliberately taking at his head with one of Borroughcliffe's pistols; and perhaps the sense of shame which induced him to sink his face on his hands was another means of saving his life, by giving the indignant old seaman time for reflection.

"But you have not spoken of the ladies," said Dillon, after a moment's pause; "I should hope they have borne the alarm of the day like kinswomen of the family of Howard."

The colonel glanced his eyes around him, as if to assure himself they were alone, and dropped his voice, as he answered:

"Ah, Kit! they have come to, since this rebel scoundrel, Griffith, has been brought into the abbey; we were favored with the company of even Miss Howard, in the dining-room, to-day. There was a good deal of 'dear uncleing,' and 'fears that my life might be exposed by the quarrels and skirmishes of these desperadoes who have landed;' as if an old fellow, who served through the whole war, from '56 to '63, was afraid to let his nose smell gunpowder any more than if it were snuff! But it will be a hard matter to wheedle an old soldier out of his allegiance! This Griffith goes to the Tower, at least, Mr. Dillon."

"It would be advisable to commit his person to the civil authority, without delay."

"To the constable of the Tower, the Earl Cornwallis, a good and loyal nobleman, who is, at this moment, fighting the rebels in my own native province, Christopher," interrupted the colonel; "that will be what I call retributive justice; but," continued the veteran, rising with an air of gentlemanly dignity, "it will not do to permit even the constable of the Tower of London to surpass the master of St. Ruth in hospitality and kindness to his prisoners. I have ordered suitable refreshments to their apartments, and it is incumbent on me to see that my commands have been properly obeyed. Arrangements must also be made for the reception of this Captain Barnstable, who will, doubtless, soon be here."

"Within the hour, at farthest," said Dillon, looking uneasily at his watch.

"We must be stirring, boy," continued the colonel, moving towards the door that led to the apartments of his prisoners; "but there is a courtesy due to the ladies, as well as to those unfortunate violators of the laws—go, Christopher, convey my kindest wishes to Cecilia; she don't deserve them, the obstinate vixen, but then she is my brother Harry's child! and while there, you arch dog, plead your own cause. Mark Antony was a fool to you at a 'ruse,' and yet Mark was one of your successful suitors, too; there was that Queen of the Pyramids—"

The door closed on the excited veteran, at these words, and Dillon was left standing by himself, at the side of the table, musing, as if in doubt, whether to venture on the step that his kinsman had proposed, or not.

The greater part of the preceding discourse was unintelligible to the cockswain, who had waited its termination with extraordinary patience, in hopes he might obtain some information that he could render of service to the captives. Before he had time to decide on what was now best for him to do, Dillon suddenly determined to venture himself in the cloisters; and, swallowing a couple of glasses of wine in a breath, he passed the hesitating cockswain, who was concealed by the opening door, so closely as to brush his person, and moved down the gallery with those rapid strides which men who act under the impulse of forced resolutions are very apt to assume, as if to conceal their weakness from themselves.—Tom hesitated no longer; but aiding the impulse given to the door by Dillon, as he passed, so as to darken the passage, he followed the sounds of the other's footsteps, while he trod in the manner already described, the stone pavement of the gallery. Dillon paused an instant at the turning that led to the room of Borroughcliffe, but whether irresolute which way to urge his steps, or listening to the incautious and heavy tread of the cockswain, is not known; if the latter, he mistook them for the echoes of his own footsteps, and moved forward again without making any discovery.

The light tap which Dillon gave on the door of the withdrawing-room of the cloisters was answered by the soft voice of Cecilia Howard herself, who bid the applicant enter. There was a slight confusion evident in the manner of the gentleman as he complied with the bidding, and in its hesitancy, the door was, for an instant, neglected.

"I come, Miss Howard," said Dillon, "by the commands of your uncle, and, permit me to add, by my own—"

"May Heaven shield us!" exclaimed Cecilia, clasping her hands in affright, and rising involuntarily from her couch, "are we, too, to be imprisoned and murdered?"

"Surely Miss Howard will not impute to me—" Dillon paused, observing that the wild looks, not only of Cecilia, but of Katherine and Alice Dunscombe, also, were directed at some other object, and turning, to his manifest terror he beheld the gigantic frame of the cockswain, surmounted by an iron visage fixed in settled hostility, in possession of the only passage from the apartment.

"If there's murder to be done," said Tom, after surveying the astonished group with a stern eye, "it's as likely this here liar will be the one to do it, as another; but you have nothing to fear from a man who has followed the seas too long, and has grappled with too many monsters, both fish and flesh, not to know how to treat a helpless woman. None, who know him, will say that Thomas Coffin ever used uncivil language, or unseamanlike conduct, to any of his mother's kind."

"Coffin!" exclaimed Katherine, advancing with a more confident air, from the corner into which terror had driven her with her companions.

"Ay, Coffin," continued the old sailor, his grim features gradually relaxing, as he gazed on her bright looks; "'tis a solemn word, but it's a word that passes over the shoals, among the islands, and along the cape, oftener than any other. My father was a Coffin, and my mother was a Joy; and the two names can count more flukes than all the rest in the island together; though the Worths, and the Gar'ners, and the Swaines, dart better harpoons, and set truer lances, than any men who come from the weather-side of the Atlantic."

Katherine listened to this digression in honor of the whalers of Nantucket, with marked complacency; and, when he concluded, she repeated slowly:

"Coffin! this, then, is long Tom!"

"Ay, ay, long Tom, and no sham in the name either," returned the cockswain, suffering the stern indignation that had lowered around his hard visage to relax into a low laugh as he gazed on her animated features; "the Lord bless your smiling face and bright black eyes, young madam! you have heard of old long Tom, then? Most likely, 'twas something about the blow he strikes at the fish—ah! I'm old and I'm stiff, now, young madam, but afore I was nineteen, I stood at the head of the dance, at a ball on the cape, and that with a partner almost as handsome as yourself—ay! and this was after I had three broad flukes logg'd against my name."

"No," said Katherine, advancing in her eagerness a step or two nigher to the old tar, her cheeks flushing while she spoke, "I had heard of you as an instructor in a seaman's duty, as the faithful cockswain, nay, I may say, as the devoted companion and friend, of Mr. Richard Barnstable— but, perhaps, you come now as the bearer of some message or letter from that gentleman."

The sound of his commander's name suddenly revived the recollection of Coffin, and with it all the fierce sternness of his manner returned. Bending his eyes keenly on the cowering form of Dillon, he said, in those deep, harsh tones, that seem peculiar to men who have braved the elements, until they appear to have imbided some of their roughest qualities:

"Liar! how now? what brought old Tom Coffin into these shoals and narrow channels? was it a letter? Ha! but by the Lord that maketh the winds to blow, and teacheth the lost mariner how to steer over the wide waters, you shall sleep this night, villain, on the planks of the Ariel; and if it be the will of God that beautiful piece of handicraft is to sink at her moorings, like a worthless hulk, ye shall still sleep in her; ay, and a sleep that shall not end, till they call all hands, to foot up the day's work of this life, at the close of man's longest voyage."

The extraordinary vehemence, the language, the attitude of the old seaman, commanding in its energy, and the honest indignation that shone in every look of his keen eyes, together with the nature of the address, and its paralyzing effect on Dillon, who quailed before it like the stricken deer, united to keep the female listeners, for many moments, silent through amazement. During this brief period, Tom advanced upon his nerveless victim, and lashing his arms together behind his back, he fastened him, by a strong cord, to the broad canvas belt that he constantly wore around his own body, leaving to himself, by this arrangement, the free use of his arms and weapons of offence, while he secured his captive.

"Surely," said Cecilia, recovering her recollection the first of the astonished group, "Mr. Barnstable has not commissioned you to offer this violence to my uncle's kinsman, under the roof of Colonel Howard?—Miss Plowden, your friend has strangely forgotten himself in this transaction, if this man acts in obedience to his order!"

"My friend, my cousin Howard," returned Katharine, "would never commission his cockswain, or any one, to do an unworthy deed. Speak, honest sailor; why do you commit this outrage on the worthy Mr. Dillon, Colonel Howard's kinsman, and a cupboard cousin of St. Ruth's Abbey?"

"Nay, Katherine—"

"Nay, Cecilia, be patient, and let the stranger have utterance; he may solve the difficulty altogether."

The cockswain, understanding that an explanation was expected from his lips, addressed himself to the task with an energy suitable both to the subject and to his own feelings. In a very few words, though a little obscured by his peculiar diction, he made his listeners understand the confidence that Barnstable had reposed in Dillon, and the treachery of the latter. They heard him with increased astonishment, and Cecilia hardly allowed him time to conclude, before she exclaimed:

"And did Colonel Howard, could Colonel Howard listen to this treacherous project!"

"Ay, they spliced it together among them," returned Tom; "though one part of this cruise will turn out but badly."

"Even Borroughcliffe, cold and hardened as he appears to be by habit, would spurn at such dishonor," added Miss Howard.

"But Mr. Barnstable?" at length Katherine succeeded in saying, when her feelings permitted her utterance, "said you not that soldiers were in quest of him?"

"Ay, ay, young madam," the cockswain replied, smiling with grim ferocity, "they are in chase, but he has shifted his anchorage, and even if they should find him, his long pikes would make short work of a dozen redcoats. The Lord of tempests and calms have mercy, though, on the schooner! Ah, young madam she, is as lovely to the eyes of an old seafaring man as any of your kind can be to human nature!"

"But why this delay?—away then, honest Tom, and reveal the treachery to your commander; you may not yet be too late—why delay a moment?"

"The ship tarries for want of a pilot.—I could carry three fathom over the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation. As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to fight my way out of."

"If that be all, follow me," cried the ardent Katherine; "I will conduct you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the sentinels."

Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and cried, in tones of horror:

"Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in war."

"My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery like this," said Cecilia, coldly.

"He did, I swear by——"

"Liar!" interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.

Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:

"Hear me, once more hear me—Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with that—oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity! —hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for me! Mr. Griffith shall be released——"

"Liar!" again interrupted the cockswain.

"What promises he?" asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at the miserable captive.

"Nothing at all that will be fulfilled," said Katherine; "follow, honest Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith."

"Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by any imaginary dangers to those you love."

"Nay, address not me," said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor; "I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power will have the mercy to see you unharmed."

"Away," said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather carrying than leading him into the gallery: "if a sound, one-quarter as loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again. My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the seizing."

This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the cockswain through the grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the faded herbage, she bade God bless him, in a voice that discovered her interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial being.

Tom needed no incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice, Dillon ventured to utter a word or two; but a stern "silence" from the cockswain warned him to cease, until perceiving that they were approaching the cliffs, he made a final effort to obtain his liberty, by hurriedly promising a large bribe. The cockswain made no reply, and the captive was secretly hoping that his scheme was producing its wonted effects, when he unexpectedly felt the keen cold edge of the barbed iron of the harpoon pressing against his breast, through the opening of his ruffles, and even raising the skin.

"Liar!" said Tom; "another word, and I'll drive it through your heart!"

From that moment, Dillon was as silent as the grave. They reached the edge of the cliffs, without encountering the party that had been sent in quest of Barnstable, and at a point near where they had landed. The old seaman paused an instant on the verge of the precipice, and cast his experienced eyes along the wide expanse of water that lay before him. The sea was no longer sleeping, but already in heavy motion, and rolling its surly waves against the base of the rocks on which he stood, scattering their white crests high in foam. The cockswain, after bending his looks along the whole line of the eastern horizon, gave utterance to a low and stifled groan; and then, striking the staff of his harpoon violently against the earth, he pursued his way along the very edge of the cliffs, muttering certain dreadful denunciations, which the conscience of his appalled listener did not fail to apply to himself. It appeared to the latter, that his angry and excited leader sought the giddy verge of the precipice with a sort of wanton recklessness, so daring were the steps that he took along its brow, notwithstanding the darkness of the hour, and the violence of the blasts that occasionally rushed by them, leaving behind a kind of reaction, that more than once brought the life of the manacled captive in imminent jeopardy. But it would seem the wary cockswain had a motive for this apparently inconsiderate desperation. When they had made good quite half the distance between the point where Barnstable had landed and that where he had appointed to meet his cockswain, the sounds of voices were brought indistinctly to their ears, in one of the momentary pauses of the rushing winds, and caused the cockswain to make a dead stand in his progress. He listened intently for a single minute, when his resolution appeared to be taken. He turned to Dillon and spoke; though his voice was suppressed and low, it was deep and resolute.