would you really let Beda go with you? say that you will, and you will make me so happy! night and day I will pray for your deliverance !"

The affectionate girl had clasped her hands with an energy that perfectly convinced Agatha her professions were without hypocrisy or deceit, and that she had uttered the real sentiments of her youthful heart; and she answered in the following terms :

"If this assurance only is wanting to make you happy, dear Beda, however far distant that day may now be which shall restore me to happiness and liberty, I solemnly promise that you shall be the companion of my journey hence if it is really your wish to place yourself under my protection; but will you feel no regret in parting with your dear grandmother, Beda ?"

"Oh no, no! dear lady!" uttered the little girl passionately, "for indeed, indeed, I have no cause to love her: did you know how cruelly she has treated me ever since the day that my poor mother died! she died of a broken heart, lady!"

"And how old were you when your mother died, poor child?" inquired Agatha, feeling at this moment the tenderest concern in the sorrows of the little orphan.

"Alas, lady! I had scarcely numbered ten years," replied the now almost weeping Beda; "and I am not yet fifteen. I knew my mother, for oh! she was a kind one! but I never knew my father; and mother never told me what he was, at which I have often wondered. He was the son of my grandmother, and that is all I know about him. Yet do you know, lady, that the Captainhush, I must speak softly-for already do I hear voices loud and boisterous in the ancient hall!" and Beda, lowering her voice almost to a whisper, and putting her pretty face close to Agatha's, murmured:" it is said, lady, that the Captain once loved my poor mother, and that I am his child!-yes, indeed, lady! Manfrida, when he was ill of the raging fever that I told you of, and did not know that any body heard him, he used to talk to himself strange things; and one night when he called for a drop of water to cool his parched lips, and I only remained by his bedside, he looked wildly at me, and exclaimed:-" poor wronged offspring of an innocent maid! and art thou the only one that comes

to aid my sufferings? while thy proud, ungrateful father avoids the presence of Manfrida; has then the only spark of gratitude I ever found him possessed of fled from his guilty breast? But he is a Captain, a noble Captain! who dares to question the honour of the noble Captain? and then, lady, Manfrida grinned and laughed most horribly, for the fever was strong upon him! so I gave him the drink, and left him to slumber. But ah, lady! never to mortal ear, save yours, did I reveal the words that Manfrida uttered on that night. But I have often paused upon them; and wondered whether he had told a tale of truth."

It was with no small symptoms of concern, and the tenderest sympathy, that Agatha listened to this artless girl, for whose situation she now felt more deeply interested than ever: yet she was by no means willing to encourage Beda to place any great reliance on the wild and incoherent ravings of a poor distracted being, under the influence of a disordered imagination and raging fever; aud, after a moment's pause, she exclaimed:

"Believe him not, dearest child, unless you have stronger evidence of so extraordinary a circumstance than the mere wanderings of a wild, distempered brain! Had Manfrida uttered truths, it is probable that they would long since have been disclosed to you by him who alone had a right to divulge them to you. Besides, a father could not so long conceal his natural feeling for his child!"

At this moment the sound of voices issued from the vaulted roofs below, and mirth and revelry were very plainly distinguishable. The party which was going to meet in festive congratulation, and fully to enjoy their bacchanalian sports, it was pretty evident had already assembled in the ancient hall: a circumstance by no means desirable to the feelings of our agitated and delicateminded heroine.

But thus situated, and unable either to fly from her misfortunes or to seek redress for her manifold wrongs, she endeavoured patiently to resign herself to her adverse fate, never once losing sight of that confidence which she reposed in a higher power, and which could not be imparted to her by the assistance of mortals! and while offering up a fervent prayer for the safety of her beloved

Wolf, she took her seat by the side of her innocent companion, whose glow of sprightliness sometimes even amused the drooping spirits of her lovely mistress; and Agatha not only smiled at her youthful pleasantry, but sat down to partake of the coffee which the little maid had so carefully prepared, with an appetite which she had never till now felt, since she had been a constrained inhabitant within the walls of the solitary old Abbey.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"What should we speak of

When we are as old as you! when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? we have seen nothing
We are beastly-subtle as the fox, for prey:
Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat :
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely."

As the evening advanced, the sounds of mirth and revelry increased with each merry sound among the boisterous seamen ; and when the circling glass and bumper toast had been many times filled to the health of the noble Captain, success to the Bold Buccaneer and all the hardy crew on board of her was repeatedly drank at the call of the master of the feast: and this jovial merriment was kept up for several successive hours with unabated glee and apparently in the utmost good humour, each man seeming to enjoy the luxuriant banquet, and disposed to be on peaceable and friendly terms with the Captain. Our heroine actually began with her little merry companion by her side to rejoice that this jovial eatertainment had been carried on without symptoms of dissatisfaction being manifest in any of the crew; and that the altercation which had taken place among them the preceding year was in no danger of being repeated this evening. She felt that nothing

would render her gloomy abode more wretched, or the terrors of it more alarming, than hearing any violent quarrel or dissention between these ferocious men and she smilingly exclaimed to her little maid :

"Well, dear Beda, since it is not likely that our apartments will be invaded or explored by any of these gaunt wolves to-night, I do not see why we should sit poring over the midnight taper, merely to listen to such rude discourse; which, though familiar to them, is extremely disgusting to me, and by no means proper for either you or I to hear. Prepare my chamber then, Beda, and we will retire to rest. All the doors of these chambers have fast

"Not one, dear lady, but what an infant's hand might readily unclose. There is no security here if any one chose to come to harm us. But there is no danger of that, lady! for the Captain would not permit any human being, save only himself and grandmother, to approach these chambers, you may depend upon it. You need not fear, dear lady. We are safe while the Captain is the officer of the watch, ay, and so we should be were even Manfrida or Hasrac to guard us."

During these words which had greatly alarmed and surprised our lovely heroine, and completely changed her intention of retiring for the night, Beda had taken the lamp in her hand, and was preparing to open the door of the apartment in which they were now sitting, when Agatha exclaimed :—

"No, dear child! sooner will I sit till the morning's light again dawn upon us, though I were ten times more weary, than retire after the intelligence you have given me. Good Heavens! am I then in danger of being hourly, nay momentarily, exposed to the rude approach of these ferocious men, without being able to secure myself from their unhallowed gaze ?""

The poor little waiting-maid was silent, and put the lamp in its former situation without being able to articulate a sentence; for the alarmed and now almost distracted looks of Agatha had perfectly filled her with terrors and apprehensions such as she had never felt before: while the continuance of the noisy and boister

ous mirth, to which was added a considerable portion of inebriety, as might very naturally be supposed to have been the result of such a meeting, almost stunned the ears of our gentle heroine and her now timid companion.

"List, lady!" uttered she, as she again took her station by theside of her mistress, after having trimmed the lamp, and placed some more fuel on the fire; " list to the voice of Manfrida, he is in high words with the Captain! Oh, Manfrida is surely drunken with the wine, or he would not dare to wag his tongue so loudly and noisily to the Captain, who is his master."

"But who may be unfit to be invested with such authority," observed Agatha, " and therefore very ill calculated to support the dignity of that character. When men have been so imprudent as to reduce themselves to this beastly situation, and are all drunken together, the king and the cobbler are upon an equality; for the one will commit naturally as many excesses, and exhibit as much folly, as the other."

At this moment the loud voice of Manfrida, who appeared to be in high dispute with one of the party, became not only plainly distinguishable in sound, but in the unguarded sentences he dropt, one of which was the following, which completely aroused the attention of the fear-stricken Agatha, and opened her eyes to all the danger, and nearly all the treachery, of her present situation.

"I say you are a liar, if you pretend to affirm that I have been liberally rewarded in this affair," furiously vociferated Manfrida; "I would not give a curse for your liberality, nor you either, Captain, if you come to that: but Hasrac knows to what extent you carry your liberality to a parcel of poor hungry blood-hounds like us, who are obliged to do your dirty work for you, and are constantly running the risk of our necks while you are taking a comfortable roost on board of the Bold Buccaneer. Yes, Captain Bounce we have all had a pretty good taste of your liberality. Ask Dick Wildfire what you gave him nineteen years ago for sinking the boat with the lady and her child under the Cliff! though you were paid so well yourself for that night's work by the--" The latter part of this sentence was suddenly dropt by the so greatly infuriated speaker in consequence of a low and faultering No. 16.

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