Chapter I

Beneath the vast superstructure of the _Palais de Justice_, a pile of buildings erected under various dynasties, now appropriated to the sittings of the several justiciary courts, and situate in the most unwholesome and dirtiest quarter of the city of Paris, is a low, narrow door—it may be seen on the right-hand of the grand staircase. This is the entrance to the _Conciergerie du Palais_, a prison famous in the annals of the French monarchy.

In May, of the year of grace, one thousand six hundred and forty, waiting with the same intent, yet standing apart from the crowd, was observable a maiden attended by an aged female domestic. At the hour of eight in the morning, knelled by the old palace-clock, the portal was opened to the admission, under heavy and inconvenient restrictions, of the friends and legal advisers of prisoners. The group of visiters entered the narrow threshold one by one, the maiden last, after exchanging an affectionate adieu with her attendant. Such had been her wonted custom the past week. Little curiosity existed among those who, like herself, were seeking admission within the dreaded walls, else they might have distinguished, what the mantle drawn close round the throat could not wholly conceal—a fair face subdued by recent sorrow. Last was she ever of the throng, for she shrank from the observation and contact of those as unhappy as herself. Let us pass the threshold with the maiden.

The narrow passage opened into a large, sombre vestibule, the walls of rough masonry, and on which were affixed lamps affording a dim, feeble light. At the entrance the damsel each day submitted a written order to a pair of ruffianly jailers, whose unwashed faces and long matted hair bespoke utter aversion to cleanliness. Holding the document to a lamp above his head, the light fell on the seamed face, begrimed with dirt, of the principal jailer. Hands of the same texture, and in the same state, had in the course of a week so soiled the pass that it appeared no longer the same document. The maiden who, whilst waiting in the outer-bureau of the minister of state, had witnessed the carefulness of the delicate hand, peeping from the lace-ruffle, which traced the characters on fair royal paper, sealed it with green office-wax, and bore it with all care in an envelop to Monseigneur, shrouded in his closet, would not have dared to show the secretary his bespoiled handiwork, and almost loathed receiving it from the grimed hand of the cerberus—but it was impolitic to exhibit the disgust she felt, and so, depositing the paper in its cleaner envelop, she walked through a long gallery, lighted, like the vestibule, by lamps, the whole day long. The gallery terminated in the prison-parlor, an apartment where the inmates held interviews with relatives and friends. And a strange parlor it appeared even to the maiden, though seen for the seventh time. Of the same confined width as the gallery, there were interposed on each side and at the extremity, strong iron rails; and between the bars of what might be compared to a bird-cage on a gigantic scale, conversed the prisoners and their visiters. Beyond the inmates’ side of the railing, was seen another row of iron-bars, and between the interstices of the latter, a scanty green whose blades of grass, few and far between, might easily be counted. Flanking this lawn were open-staircases leading to the apartments of prisoners treated with less rigor than others condemned to the noisome cells of the old structure.

The maiden paused not on reaching the parlor—she appeared to know, as it were intuitively, that the party she sought would not be found with the herd—but proceeding to the extremity of the cage, awaited the slow movement of the jailer’s assistant, who, seated on a bench, kept a sharp eye on what was passing around. Rising reluctantly, he unfastened the lock of the cage-door, admitting the fair visiter. She was about producing, as usual, the order which afforded her the exclusive privilege, but he motioned her to proceed.

“_Jour de Dieu!_ Mademoiselle,” said the lazy official, “I am glad such commands are scarce, or I should have a fine life of it!”

Glad to escape further parley, she tripped forward to the gate which opened on the green—shook it—but the chain which passed between the bars of the gate and intertwined with the corresponding shafts of the iron inclosure, was fastened by a padlock. She turned round, but the jailer was at hand—and with something between a smile and a contortion of the muscles, he said, “Mademoiselle’s sentiments, no doubt, correspond with mine—there is no necessity for this vexation.”

The vexation complained of, was the being obliged to keep the gate locked and the key on his person, which placed the functionary at the mercy of every prisoner anxious to retire to the meditation of his cell, when there might happen to be an equal anxiety on the part of the warder to doze indolently with twinkling, half-opened eye on the comfortable bench.

Forcing a smile in reply to the remark, she walked quickly across the lawn—scant as the hairs on head of octogenarian—flew up one of the staircases, and entering a narrow passage, was about to knock at the chamber door, when it opened, and an elderly man, with a martial cast of countenance, stood before her, smiling.

“As punctual as the clock, my good Marguerite,” said the prisoner in a tone of gaiety, perhaps not wholly sincere.

Marguerite burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. The old man—he was her surviving parent—chid the damsel, and leading her to a chair—there were but two in the little chamber—bade her reassume the courage becoming the daughter of an old _militaire_.

“Father! my news is not good—there is no hope yet!” exclaimed Marguerite, drying her tears. She looked in his face, dreading the impression which the intelligence would produce.

“No hope, Marguerite?” exclaimed her father, “that cannot be—fortune indeed was never kind, but hope never forsakes me—she is as kind—as kind as Marguerite. And I see,” (looking at a basket which she brought under her mantle) “that you have not forgotten to cater for our breakfast.”

It was the Sieur De Pontis, whose wants were thus carefully administered to by an affectionate daughter. Of an ancient family in Limousin, and of moderate estate, he had in early life followed the profession of arms, serving in succession, and faithfully, the third and fourth Henry, and the reigning monarch, Louis, thirteenth of that name. With a fondness for the profession, rather than any ambition or abstract love of glory, he had arrived at a fair rank in the armies of France, and been personally noticed by the kings and princes whom he served. It were reasonable to suppose of such a man, that without objection on the score of family or descent, of fair estate, character and temper formed to make friends rather than provoke enmity, and whose career had been hitherto free from charge of neglect or error in military duties, that he should have found himself in old age, at least as rich as when he commenced life. Far from it! and the only way it could be accounted for by himself or friends, was conveyed in the remark that he was singularly unfortunate. Farm after farm had melted away, and there remained only one _terre_ or estate—a barren place—in his native province, Limousin. Was he prudent or did he indulge in the excesses of a campaigning life? De Pontis, as we have said, had a fondness for the profession. He was, moreover, a strict disciplinarian, frugal, saving, and free from the prevailing vices of gaming and debauchery.

In endeavoring to account for the poverty of the old _militaire_, we are thus driven back to his own assertion, that he was unfortunate. Such a condition was perhaps satisfactory to De Pontis himself, who was merely a philosopher practically—as his biographer, it becomes us to look beneath the surface, and, if possible, pluck out the heart of the mystery. Let us in a few words, with a view to elucidation, examine the military system of the period.

De Pontis at the first start (and the mode was general) sold a portion of his land to equip himself honorably—in a way befitting name and lineage, as one anxious to maintain the standing of a French gentleman. Horses for himself and servants, military baggage and accoutrements, arms—and a few rouleaus of gold to lose with good grace and temper on introduction to the general’s table—required a considerable amount of money. In time of war, princes are needy. He who brought to the camp men and horses was a good, dutiful subject; but he who could, in addition, assist a distressed sovereign with a subsidy proportioned to his means, was a welcome friend. On the other hand, the governments of conquered towns and fortresses, the plunder of the enemy’s camp and country, and, above all, the ransom of prisoners taken in battle, were the means by which the French gentleman recruited his finances, and indemnified himself for the charges of military outlay.

A fair share of these windfalls had been the lot of De Pontis, and his excellent discipline and perfect knowledge of military tactics had extorted, on several occasions, from the French monarchs, presents of rare value. Still every year saw him grow poorer. And how happened it?

Returning once from a campaign in Germany, laden with gold, and a dozen fine horses, the spoil of the Austrian archduke’s stud, he was swindled out of the whole between Strasburg and Paris, by a youngster travelling the same route in grand style, calling himself Baron De Champoleon—but who was really only son of a poor minister of Nismes. Already an adept in roguery, he was on the road to Paris, intent on villanous practices, when he fell in with the unfortunate De Pontis.

Our _militaire_ bore the loss philosophically, only exclaiming, “If he had but left me my favorite hack, _Millefleurs_, I should have been content!”

Twice he had been taken prisoner, losing horses and personal property, and obliged to instruct relatives at home to sell more paternal acres to pay ransom—the alternative being to submit to a dreary _parole_ confinement in a remote town in Germany, and await the dubious and uncertain chance of an exchange of prisoners. On the last occasion that this calamity occurred, the distress was greatly aggravated by the dishonesty of the party through whom the funds raised for his ransom were conveyed—making necessary a second sale of land.

But without adding to the catalogue of untoward events, let it suffice to say, that circumstances which to most people, and on most occasions, proved instances of good fortune, were to the old soldier harbingers of ill-luck and misfortune.

“My poor De Pontis never prospers!” exclaimed the good-natured Louis one day, on hearing that the veteran had lost a diamond-ring, a late royal gift.

His wife dead, there remained only for the solace of old age, his fair daughter, Marguerite. Deeply as she felt her father’s distresses, fondly as she endeavored to hide her grief, and contribute by every art to his comfort, it proved that the damsel herself oftener stood in need of consolation than the veteran sufferer. He possessed such a fund of resignation, flow of strong animal spirits, and a heart void of high ambitious views, aiming only at duty and loyalty, that the shafts of misfortune lost much of their power.

Not so with Marguerite; though her father bore up manfully against adversity, yet she had witnessed one parent droop, pine and fall beneath the successive strokes of ill fortune, and despondency and gloom gathered around her young heart.

Even now, as she arranged the little breakfast service, stepping to and fro with an innate grace which quite dispelled the idea of the dread walls which enclosed her, it was evident how much her repulse of yesterday, of which she had barely hinted to her father, weighed on her spirits. Marguerite was now nineteen. The promise of youthful beauty had not disappointed expectation; each year of budding loveliness added to her charms; and the little sylph had expanded almost to womanhood. The roses smiled but languidly on her cheek; but the pale, delicate complexion, regular features, and jetty-black eyes with long fringes—so piquant in the drooping glance of a devotee—atoned for the departed bloom. But the devotee with eyes “loving the ground” is oft but an artifice of coquetry and affectation—whilst the timid, reserved glance of Marguerite breathed a spiritual essence. She had been early touched with the wand of sorrow, and the chastened spirits lent an impress of melancholy grace to her looks, her actions, even her walk. Strange contrast to the scarcely repining, ever sanguine, old soldier; and there were times, when the daughter, dwelling perhaps on the memory of her broken-hearted mother, looked up reproachfully in the calm face of the veteran.

But why was De Pontis mewed so closely in the _Conciergerie du Palais_—he, the favorite of three successive monarchs, and a master whom he had served faithfully, still reigning? That same master’s royal munificence was the unintentional cause! Let us, while Mademoiselle and her father are breakfasting, make the paradox clear.

It was the custom in France, when an alien died—and there were no immediate heirs to pray the throne’s mercy for permission—not always granted—to take possession of the effects—that the estate, after satisfaction to the just creditors of the deceased, became the property of his most Christian Majesty. The law, or rather usage, was called _le droit d’aubaine_. The king seldom availed of these royal waifs for the advantage of his private exchequer or privy purse, but usually made them over, in form of donation, to favorites. Courtiers were therefore on the lookout, and there often ensued a competition or race between parties anxious to gain prior audience of his majesty, and extort the royal word, ere more powerful rivals were apprized of the windfall.

It so happened that Monsieur De Pontis and his daughter lodged in the house of a rich upholsterer, a native of Spain. The man suddenly dying, and being without wife or children, our _militaire_ had no scruple—as it would beggar no orphans—of proceeding direct to the Tuileries, and claiming audience of his master.

No man had less control over his own actions, or power over his own proscribed rights and privileges, than Louis. He was a well-intentioned, weak man, but an iron-handed, iron-hearted minister of state, the Cardinal Richelieu, was so effectually dominant, that even Anne, consort of royalty, could not select or dismiss a maid of honor without his permission.

De Pontis, a favorite with Louis, was not patronized by the minister. His petition was favorably received—but then there was the dreaded cardinal! If he should wish to bestow _le droit_ elsewhere, he would have but little scruple in overruling the veteran’s pretensions. Majesty itself—in this matter on a par with the humblest follower of the court—was obliged to manœuvre to gain its ends when the Cardinal Duke De Richelieu was in question.

Louis had arrived at that stage of subjection to the master-intellect which governed him, that it was useless longer attempting concealment of the fact. He knew and confessed the infirmity—often seeking to make league against the tyrant—and ever ready to jest on his weakness. He resolved to serve De Pontis, and knew no other way of making the gift sure and irrevocable than executing on the spot, without aid of secretary, a warrant signed and sealed in due form.

“There, Monsieur!” exclaimed Louis, handing the document, “the cardinal cannot undo that without making ourself less than a gentleman; and we will hold to our pledged faith as a Bourbon.”

Kissing the royal hand, the old soldier departed, sighing at the condition to which he saw the son of the illustrious and high-spirited Henry the Fourth reduced.

With the royal warrant for authority, he took possession of the extensive ware-rooms of the deceased, and selecting a bed with hangings, an article of rare cost designed for a palace, curtains of silk and coverlet of velvet embroidered, masses of rich ostrich plumes waving on the summit of each of the four exquisitely carved columns, he sent it to the Tuileries a present to the Queen Anne.

The court was in a ferment, and more than one favorite of Richelieu flew off to Ruel to acquaint his eminence with the presumption of De Pontis in asking for such a wealthy _droit d’aubaine_. To hear them address the great patron, it might be supposed that each dependent had been deprived of promised right, and that the cardinal, by the act of his majesty, had been defrauded of the undoubted patronage of office.

A mandate from Richelieu came to De Pontis, prohibiting further exercise of ownership over the property, till the circumstances of the deceased had been made the subject of inquiry. What should the old man do? If he resisted the order, the Bastille stared him in the face, despite the sovereign’s protection. He repaired to the Tuileries, and, knowing the situation of affairs, contrived to gain the ear of majesty without its being known to whom the monarch gave audience. But royalty was at a loss how to advise—he must temporize, go visit the cardinal, plead his services to the State, and endeavor to mollify his eminence—meanwhile relying on the pledged Bourbon word.

“Monsieur perceives,” said Louis, with a faint smile, “that our minister expresses, ‘_till the circumstances of the deceased had been made the subject of inquiry_.’ He does not dispute our prerogative.”

De Pontis returned home, took horse and rode to Ruel, a country-seat of the cardinal, a few miles from Paris, and where he spent much time. His eminence is descried walking on a verdant, close-shaven lawn, alone and buried in meditation; friends and train have apparently received a hint to leave the great man to himself; they are scattered over the park and gardens.

The veteran would rather have marched a battalion of choice infantry against a line of artillery, than attack the solitary and stately priest. He ventured, nevertheless, into the presence, cap in hand and bowing lowly.

“Ah! my friend, Monsieur de Pontis,” said the cardinal, glancing one moment at the old soldier and continuing his walk.

Our _militaire_ walked by his side, or rather a little to the rearward, cap still in hand, and asking permission to plead his suit. The cardinal made a sign that he should replace his cap, which De Pontis construing into a hint that he had liberty of speech, commenced a peroration of services, alluding to the misfortunes of his career, the necessity of making provision for a daughter, and the gracious wishes of his royal master.

Still, as he talked, the minister paced the turf, inclining his head occasionally without once looking the veteran in the face. De Pontis’ speech at length came to an end, and he awaited the illustrious man’s reply.

“_Serviteur très-humble!_” said the cardinal, with a low bow, intended for dismissal. The habits and peculiarities of his eminence were well known, and his auditor was aware that these were the words used when it was intended to negative the request of a petitioner; but De Pontis had a more than ordinary interest at stake, and he faltered out, “If Monseigneur would listen—”

“_Serviteur très-humble!_” thundered the haughty cardinal, striding with a quicker pace over the green-sward.

The unlucky De Pontis started as though he had received a musket shot. He turned from his eminence and rode back to Paris, fancying in each echo of his horse’s hoofs that he heard the words “_Serviteur très-humble!”_ of the cardinal duke.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

THE EXILE’S FAREWELL.

BY W. H. RACEY.

My own, my native land, my happy home,
Where lie inurned the ashes of my sires,
Mournfully from your sacred scenes I roam,
While, in my heart, the light of joy expires!
Far from your broad lakes, and your sunlit bays,
Your forests vast and boundless flowery plains,
Stern fate commands, and scarce its power delays
Till this rude harp has closed its dying strains.

The wanderer leaves: but if perchance he sees,
When far away, a fairer face or form,
Or if at eve, far floating o’er the breeze,
Some swelling melody is sweetly borne,
The sight will bring the loved and distant near,
And he will deem the soil he treads his own;
The music falling on his wearied ear
Will waken thoughts of home in every tone.

The wanderer leaves: but if a closing day
Departs with brighter glories in the west,
If e’en a cloud in evening shades away,
Stainèd with brighter hues than all the rest,
Then will he pause, where’er his steps may be,
Oh father-land! and, as he heaves a sigh,
Dream that, far o’er a thousand leagues of sea,
He treads your soil, he views your twilight die.

* * * * *

ELIZABETH.

BY J. T. S. SULLIVAN.

Oh, were I a bird that could sing all the day,
I would fly to her bower to carol my lay!
Or were I a breath of the soft scented air,
I would waft all my sweets to her bower so fair!
Or were I a thought could awaken a smile,
I would rest on her lip all her woes to beguile;
I would make my bright throne in her sorrowing heart,
And each impulse that grew should its pleasure impart!

Oh, were I a strain of some melody sweet,
I would steal to her chamber her slumbers to greet!
Or were I a dream could recall to her mind
The pleasures and joys she has long left behind,
I would hover around in the stillness of night,
And her visions of sleep should be joyously bright!
I would kiss from her cheek ev’ry envious tear,
And guard her fond bosom from sorrow and fear!

* * * * *

HARRY CAVENDISH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” THE “REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.

THE LEE SHORE.

“All hands ahoy!” rang through the ship, as the shrill whistle of the boatswain awoke me from a pleasant dream. I started, hastily threw on my monkey-jacket, and in a minute was on deck.

The winter sun had set clear, without a cloud to fleck the heavens, and when I went below at midnight, leaving the starboard watch in possession of the deck, the cold, bright stars were out, twinkling in the frosty sky; while a capful of wind was sending us merrily along. Six bells had just struck as I sprang up the gangway, and the night was still clear above, but, casting my eye hurriedly around, I saw a bank of mist, close on the starboard bow, driving rapidly for us, and covering sea and sky in that quarter, in a shadowy veil. The men were already at their posts, and as my watch came tumbling on deck each member of it sprang to aid his messmates, so that in less time than I have taken to describe it, we had got the light sails in, had kept away the schooner a few points, and were ready to let every thing go by the run, if necessary, as soon as the squall struck us. Nor did we wait long for the unwelcome visiter. Scarcely had our craft been made snug before the squall burst on us in a whirlwind of snow, hail, rain, and wind, against whose fury it was, for the moment, impossible to stand. As the gale struck the schooner, she heeled over until her decks were fearfully inclined, while the tall masts bent like rushes in the tempest, and the spars strained and cracked as if they were unequal to the torture. For a moment I thought that all was over, and clutching a rope I made ready to spring to windward as soon as she should capsize; but after a second of breathless uncertainty she slightly recovered herself, and dashed forward as if she had been shot like an arrow from the bow, her whole forward part buried in the foam that boiled around her bows, and flew high up the mast in showers. All this time the wind was shrieking through the hamper with an intonation like that of a tortured fiend; while the hail and snow driving horizontally against the men fairly pinned them to their stations. The ropes soon became coated with ice; while the cold grew intense, so that it was with difficulty we could get the fore and main sails reefed. At length, however, we stripped her to the fight, when she rose until nearly level, bearing gallantly up against the gale. Meantime, the snow fell thick and fast, covering the decks with its white carpeting, and dressing the shrouds, booms, and the weather side of the masts in the garments of the grave.

“Whew! what a flurry! Old Davy himself has laid hold of the bellows to-night,” said the captain of the starboard watch, stooping before the gale and turning his back to windward; “why it blows as if it would whiff our little craft away, like a feather, before it. By the gods, but that bucket full of hail that has just rattled on my shoulders was enough to have felled an ox! It must be as black as the ace of spades to windward—hark! how the infernal sleet sings in the rigging.”

“How long was the squall coming up?” said I, as soon as the roar of the elements suffered me to speak, for it was only in the occasional pauses in the gale, that I could hope to be heard.

“It came up like a pet in a woman—one moment her face is all smiles, the next black as a thunder cloud. When five bells struck the sky was as clear as a kitten’s eye, and now you can’t see a fathom over the starboard bow; while we are driving along here like a chip in a mill-race, or a land-bird caught by a nor’wester. Whistle, whistle—howl, howl, why it blows as if the devil himself was working the bellows up to windward.”

I could not help smiling at my messmate’s energy, and as he closed I looked thoughtlessly over the starboard quarter, when a wild dash of sleet right in my face, stinging as if ten thousand nettles had struck me, forced me to turn my back on the storm more rapidly than I had faced it.

“It is as sharp as a razor,” I ejaculated, when I recovered my breath, “and cuts to the bone. But let me see, Mr. Merrivale,” said I, approaching the binnacle, “this squall must be from the northeast. Aye! not a point either way. It’s a lucky thing we have a good offing; I wouldn’t be on the coast now for a year’s pay.”

“It would be an ugly berth,” said Merrivale, shaking the sleet from his hair, “I’ve no notion of being jammed up like a rat in a corner, with a lee-shore on one side, and a wind blowing great guns on the other, while one’s only chance is to hug the gale under a crowd of canvass that threatens to snap your masts off as I could snap a pipe-stem. No! thank God, we’re far at sea!”

The words had scarcely left his mouth, and I was as yet unable to answer, when a strange, booming sound, over the larboard bow, smote on my ear, thrilling through every nerve; while, at the same instant, the look-out shouted, in sharp, quick tones,

“Breakers ahead!”

For an instant there was an ominous silence, while even the tempest seemed to die momently away. No one who has not heard that fearful cry on a lee shore, when surrounded by darkness, can have any notion of our feelings. Each man held his breath, and turned his ear anxiously to leeward. In that awful second what varied emotions rushed through our minds, as we heard, rising distinctly over the partial lull of the tempest, the hoarse roar of the surf, apparently close under our lee.

“Port—a-port—jam her close to the wind,” almost shrieked Merrivale, the energy of his character, in the moment of peril, divesting him of his usual prolixity.

“Port it is,” answered the man at the helm, as the sheets came rattling in and the schooner flew to windward, shivering the opposing wave to atoms, and sending the foam crackling in showers over the forecastle. As she answered to her helm, we caught sight, through the shadowy tempest, of the white breakers boiling under our lee; and an ejaculation of heartfelt gratitude broke involuntarily from my lips when, a moment after, I saw the ghastly line of foam glancing astern.

“Thank God!” echoed Merrivale; “another instant of delay and we should have struck. But how could we have made such a mistake in our reckoning? Where are we?”

“We are off the Jersey coast, somewhere between Egg Harbor and Barnegat,” I answered, “but I thought we were at least twenty leagues at sea. How gallantly the old craft staggers to windward—she will yet weather the danger.”

The exertions of the schooner were indeed noble. With her nose close down to the tempest, and her masts bending before the fierce hurricane that whistled along her canvass, she threshed her way to windward, now doggedly climbing up an opposing billowy and now thumping through the head sea, scattering the foam on either side her path, her timbers quivering and groaning, in the desperate encounter. One moment the parted wave whizzed along the side, glittering with spectral brilliancy; and again, the wild spray went hissing by in the air, drenching the decks with water. Now, a huge billow striking on her bows, with the force of a dozen forge hammers, staggered her momently in her course; and now, shaking the water proudly from her, she addressed herself again to her task and struggled up the wave. Thus battling against sea, storm, and hurricane, she held on her way, like a strong man fighting through a host.

Every officer as well as man was now on deck, and each one, fully sensible of our danger, watched with eager eyes through the gloom to distinguish whether we gained ground in our desperate encounter. For an instant, perhaps, as the darkness hid the breakers from sight, or their roar came fainter to the ear in the increasing fury of the gale, we would fancy that our distance from the surf was slowly increasing; but as often, when the gale lulled, or the darkness on our lee broke partially away, our hearts sank within us at the conviction that our peril still continued as imminent as ever, and that the struggles of our gallant craft had been in vain. Meantime, the hurricane grew wilder and fiercer, and at length we saw that we were losing ground. The schooner still battled with a spirit as undaunted as before against her combined enemies, but she labored more and more at every opposing wave, as if fast wearing out in the conflict.

“We must crowd the canvass on her,” said the skipper, after a long and anxious gaze on the shore under our lee, “if we strike out here, a mile at least from land, we shall all be lost. Better then jerk the mast out of her in clawing off.”

The order was accordingly given to take a reef out of the fore and mainsail, and, after a desperate struggle with the canvass, the men succeeded in executing their duty. When our craft felt the increased sail, she started nervously forward, burying herself so deeply in the head sea that I feared she would never emerge, while every rope, shroud and timber in her cracked in the strain. At length, however, she rose from the surge, and rolled heavily to windward, slowly shaking from her the tons of water that had pressed on her decks and buried every thing forward in the deluge. With another partial check, and another desperate, but successful struggle, we breathed more freely. Yet there still came to our ears the sullen roar of the breakers on our lee, warning us that peril was yet imminent.

“Hark!” suddenly said Merrivale, “surely I heard a cannon. There is some craft nigh, even more dangerously situated than ourselves.”

“And there goes the flash,” I exclaimed, pointing ahead, while simultaneously the boom of a signal gun rose on the night. “God help them, they are driving on the breakers,” I added, as another flash lit up, for a moment, the scene before us, revealing a dismantled ship flying wildly before the tempest.

“They are whirling down to us with the speed of a racer—we shall strike,” ejaculated Merrivale.

As he spoke, the shadowy ship emerged from the tempest of snow and sleet, not a pistol shot from our bow. Never shall I forget the appearance of that spectral craft. She had no mast remaining, except the stump of the mizzen. From her size we knew her to be a sloop-of-war. So far as we could see through the obscurity, her decks were crowded with human beings, some apparently stupefied, some in the attitude of supplication, and some giving way to uncontrollable frenzy. As all power over her had been lost, she was driving directly before the tempest. The time that was consumed in these observations occupied but an instant, for the darkness of the storm was so dense that the eye could not penetrate the gloom more than a few fathoms; and a period scarcely sufficient for a breath elapsed from the first discovery of the ship before we saw that ere another instant she would come in contact with us. Already she was in fearful proximity to our bows. The danger was perceived by us and by the crew of the dismantled ship at the same moment, and a wild cry rose up which drowned even the frenzied tempest. Escape seemed impossible. We were between two dangers, to one of which we must fall a prey. Our only chance of avoiding the breakers was to keep our craft close to the wind, while, by so doing, a collision with the stranger appeared inevitable. Yet a single chance remained.

“Jam her up,” shouted the skipper, catching at the only hope, “aye! hard down till she shivers.”

We held our breath for the second that ensued. So close had the ship approached that I could have pitched a biscuit on her decks. Her bowsprit already threatened to come into collision with our bows, and involuntarily I grasped a rope, expecting the next instant to be at the mercy of the waves. On—on—she came, her huge hull, as it rose on the wave, fearfully overtopping our own, and threatening, at the first shock, to crush us. A second and wilder cry of agony burst from every lip, but, at that instant, she swerved, what seemed a hair’s breadth, to one side, her bowsprit grazed ours in passing, and she whirled by like a bird on the wing.

The scene did not occupy a minute. So sudden had been the appearance of the ship, so imminent had been our peril, and so rapidly had the moment of danger come and gone, that the whole occurrence seemed to me like a dream; and when, after a second’s delay, the ill-fated ship passed away into the darkness under our lee, and the shrieks of her crew were lost in the uproar of the gale, I almost doubted whether what we had just beheld had been real. But a glance at the faces of my messmates dissipated my incredulity, for on every countenance was written the history of the few last moments of agonizing suspense. A profound silence, meanwhile, reigned on our decks, every eye being strained after the drowning man-of-war. At length Merrivale spoke.

“It is a miracle how we escaped,” and then in a sadder tone he added, “the Lord have mercy on all on board yonder ship. But hark!” he suddenly exclaimed, and a wild, thrilling cry, as if a hundred voices had united in a shriek of agony, struggled up from leeward. Years have passed since then, and the hair that was once fair has now turned to gray, but that awful sound yet rings in my ears; and often since have I started from my sleep, fancying that I saw again that spectral ship flitting by through the gloom, or heard that cry of agony drowning, for the moment, the raging tempest. Our blood curdled at the sound, and we gazed into each other’s faces with horror on every line of countenance. More than a minute elapsed before a word was said; and, during the interval, we sought to catch a repetition of the cry, however faint; but only the singing of the sleet through the hamper, the whistle of the hurricane overhead, and the wild roar of the breakers under our lee, came to our ears. No further token of that ill-fated ship ever reached us. Not a living soul, of the hundreds who had crowded her deck when she whirled across our course, landed on that coast. With all their sins on their heads, afar from those they loved and by whom they were loved in return, her crew went down into the deep, “unknelled, uncoffined and unknown.” When that wintry storm had passed away, the timbers of a wreck were found strewing the inhospitable shore, with here and there a dead body clinging to a fragment of a spar, but neither man nor child survived to tell how agonizingly they struggled against their fate, to practise the reformation which they had promised in their hour of bitter need. And when the summer sun came forth, kissing the bright waters of the Atlantic, and children laughingly gathered shells along shore, who would have thought that, a few months before, the heavens had looked down, in that very spot, on the wild struggles of the dying? But I pass on.

At length that weary night wore away, and when morning dawned, we saw the full extent of the danger we had escaped. All along the coast, at a distance of more than a mile from the shore, stretched a narrow shoal, over which the breakers were now boiling as in a maelstrom. It needed no prophet to foretell our fate, had we struck amid this surf. No boat could have lived in that raging sea, and our frail craft would have been racked to pieces in less than half an hour. Nothing but the energy of the skipper in crowding the canvass on the schooner, though at the imminent hazard of carrying away the masts and thus ensuring certain destruction, enabled us to escape the doom which befell the ill-fated man-of-war.

In a few days we made Block Island, and hauled up for Newport, where we expected to meet The Arrow. It was a beautiful day in winter when we entered the outer harbor, and the waves which a light frosty breeze just rippled, glittered in the sunlight as if the surface of the water had been strewed with diamonds. The church bells were merrily ringing in honor of the intelligence, which had been just received, of the alliance with France. We came to anchor amid a salvo from the batteries of the fort, and of our consort who was already at anchor in the inner harbor.

Merry was our meeting with the ward-room and cock-pit of The Arrow, and many a gay sally bore witness to the hilarity with which we greeted each other after our mutual adventures. For a week, the town rung with our mirth. At the end of that time, I managed to obtain leave of absence, and remembering my promise to Mr. St. Clair, started for Pomfret Hall. As I lay back in the coach, and was whirled over the road behind two fast hackneys, I indulged in many a recollection of the past, in not a few reveries over the future. But most of all I wondered how Annette would receive me. The thoughts of our last parting were fresh in my memory, but months of changes had since elapsed, and might not corresponding changes have occurred in her feelings towards me? Would she meet me with the delightful frankness of our childhood, or with the trembling embarrassment of our few last interviews? Or might she not, perhaps, as too many before had done, welcome me with a cold politeness, that would be more dreadful to me than even scorn? The longer I thought of the subject, the more uncertainty I felt as to my reception. At first I had pictured to myself Annette, standing blushing and embarrassed on the steps, to greet me as soon as I alighted; but when I came to reflect I felt that, like all lovers, I had dreamed impossibilities; and I almost laughed at my wild vision when I recalled to mind that I stood in no other light to Annette than as an acquaintance, at most as a friend. My feelings then took a sudden revulsion, and I asked myself, might not she love another? What had I ever said to induce her to believe that I loved her? Could she be expected to give her affections, unasked, to any one, but especially to a poor adventurer, whose only fortune was his sword, when the proudest of the land would consider her hand as a boon? What madness to think that, surrounded as she doubtless had been by suitors, her heart before this had not been given to another! As I thought this, I fancied that I was going only to behold the triumph of some more fortunate rival, and I cursed myself for having come on such an errand. At one moment I was almost resolved to turn back. But again hope dawned in my bosom. I felt that Annette must have seen my love, and I recalled to mind how tremblingly alive she had been, during our last interview, to my attentions. Surely then she had not forgotten me. I was doing her injustice, and with this conviction, I leaned out of the carriage window, and ordered the postillion to drive faster.

The second day brought me in sight of the gates of Pomfret Hall, and as I dashed up to them, and felt that my suspense would soon be terminated, my heart fluttered wildly. As the carriage whirled into the avenue, I saw a procession of the neighboring village girls proceeding to the hall. They were dressed in white, and bore flowers, as if going to some festival. At that instant I recollected that the church bells had been ringing merrily ever since I came within hearing of them, and, with a sudden thrill of agony, I stopped the coach as the village girls stepped aside to let it pass, and inquired the meaning of their procession. My voice was so husky that, at first, it was undistinguishable; and I was forced to repeat the question.

“Oh! it’s the meaning of our going to the hall, the gentleman would know,” said a female at the head of the procession; then turning to me she said, with a curtsey, “The young mistress was married this morning, and we are going to the hall to present her with flowers. This is her school, sir, and I am the mistress.”

I sank back in the carriage with a groan. At first I thought of ordering the postillion to return, but then I resolved to go forward, and, concealing my sufferings, appear the gayest of the gay.

“Yes!” I exclaimed in bitter agony, “never shall she know the misery she has inflicted. And yet, oh, God! that Annette should thus have deserted me—” and, with these words, I sternly bid the postillion drive on. But I felt like a criminal bound to his execution.

* * * * *

TO MY SISTERS.

WRITTEN AFTER THEIR DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.

BY ANNA CORA MOWATT.

Sweet sisters! have I on your lips
The farewell kiss imprest!
And are you sadly sundered now
From all who loved you best!
Must years roll on ere I again
Shall spring your kiss to meet?
Ere fondly clasped to yours this heart
Once more shall wildly beat?

Ye ocean waves that round them dash,
Oh, bear them on your breast,
E’en as the mother’s bears the babe
That sinks on hers to rest!
Oh! swell their sails, ye prosperous winds!
And waft them gently on,
And tell them with their smiles, alas!
Our sweetest joys are gone.

Though wide that ocean is, and deep,
Not all its waters blue
Could from my memory raze one hour,
Dear sisters! spent with you.
And though the wild wind’s angry roar
Might fill my soul with fear,
It could not drown the tones—your tones
Still sounding in mine ear.

It may be I no more shall list
That cherished music here;
Yet shall I greet it where ’twill sound
More softly sweet, more dear.
And though our lips must first be cold,
Our next kiss may be given,
Where angels smile upon the pledge,
When we are met in heaven!

* * * * *

THE SISTERS.

A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY H. W. HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” “THE BROTHERS,”
“CROMWELL,” ETC. ETC.

(Continued from page 30.)