take all the trumpery out of the cabin, for we shall hold revel there to-night." A step now came softly down the cabin stair, and a hand tried the door, but found it fastened. I quitted Margaret, and placed myself at the entrance of the cabin. "Whoever," said I, "attempts to come into this place, does it at the peril of his life. I fire the instant the latch is raised."-A voice said, "Laissez moi entrer donc." I hesitated for a moment, and then unfastened the door. Girod entered, and locked it after him. He dragged in with him four strings, with heavy stones appended to them, and the same number of sacks. The females sank on the floor. In the twinkling of an eye Girod rolled up the carpet of the cabin, and took up the trap-door, which every traveller knows is to be found in the cabins of merchantmen. "In-in," he said in French to the countess and myself. I immediately descended, received Margaret into my arms, and was holding them out for the other females, when the trap-door was instantly closed and bolted, the carpet laid down, the cabin door unlocked, and Girod called out, "Here, you, Harry, Jack, how call you yourselves, I've done for two of dem. I can't manage no more. Dat tamned Captain Lyon, when I stuff him in de sack, he almost brake de arm." Heavy feet trampling over the cabin floor, with a sound of scuffling and struggling, were now heard over our head. A stified shriek, which died into a deep groan, succeeded-then two heavy plashes into the water, with the bubbling noise of something sinking beneath the waves, and the fate of the two innocent sisters was decided. "Where's Monsieur Girod?" at length said a rough voice.-"Oh, he's gone above," was the reply; "thinks himself too good to kill any but quality."—" No, no," answered the other, "I'm Girod's, through to the back-bone-the funniest fellow of the crew. But he

had a private quarrel against that eaptain down at the bottom of the sea, there, so he asks our commander not to let anybody lay hands on him but himself. A very natural thing to ask. There-close that locker, heave out the long" table, there'll be old revel here tonight."-At this moment Girod again descended. "All hands aloft, ma lads," he cried, "make no attention to de carpet dere-matters not, for I must fairst descend, and give out de farine for pasty. We have no more cursed voyagers, so may make revel here to_naight vidout no incommode." He soon descended with a light into our wooden dungeon.

But

Her own unexpected rescue, the fate of her domestics, and the sudden obscurity in which we were involved, had almost overpowered Margaret's senses, but they returned with the light. "Poor Katie, poor Mary. Alas! for their aged mother!" she said, in the low and subdued tone of one who seems half dreaming a melancholy and frightful dream, and looking with horror at Girod.-"I would have saved you all, had it been possible," said Jacqueminot, in French. "But how were all to be hid, and kept in this place? What I have done is at the risk of my life. there is not a moment to be lost. I have the keeping of the sternhold. Look you-here be two rows of meal-sacks fore and aft. If you, miladi, can hide behind one, and you, colonel, behind the other, ye may have, in some sort, two little chambers to yourselves, after English fashion. Or if you prefer the same hiding-place, take it, in heaven's name, but lose not a moment." -"And what will be the end of all this?" asked I, after some hurried expressions of gratitude." God knoweth," he replied. "I will from time to time, when I descend to give out meal, and clean the place, bring you provisions. How long this can last-where we are going

and whether in the end I can res

cue you, time must be the shower. If we should put into some port of the Levant, perhaps I may be able to pass you on shore in one of these sacks; but we are still on the Gibraltar side of Malta, and shall not see land for a month-only, for God's sake, keep quiet. I'd leave you a light, but it would be dangerous. I doubt you'll be stifled alive. Yet there's no help for it. Hide, hide-I dare stay not one moment longer." He rolled down a heap of biscuits, placed a pitcher of water by them, and departed.

Never will our first fearful night in that strange concealment be forgotten. The Demon crew held wild revelry over our head. Their fierce and iniquitous speech, their lawless songs, their awful and demoniac oaths, their wild intoxication, made Margaret thrill with a horror that half excited the wish to escape in death from the polluting vicinity of such infernal abominations. The hold was so shallow that we appeared close to the revellers. Their voices sounded so near that we seemed almost among them, and our concealment a miracle; while the heat became so stifling and unbearable, that we could scarcely gasp, and I began to fear that Margaret would expire in my arms.

It was a strange reflection that we might, almost without the warning of an instant, be in the hands of our brutal and unconscious gaolers; for our concealment afforded not even the slender defence of an inside lock or bolt, and the carpet, which seemed to present a slight barrier between us and the Demon hoard, had been rolled up, as no longer necessary to give our late accommodations the peaceful appearance of a cabin fitted up for passengers. The light streamed here and there through the crevice in the trap-door, and I involuntarily trembled when I saw it fall on the white garment of Margaret, as if, even in that concealment, it might betray her. We dared scarcely whisper a word of encouragement

or consolation to each other-dared scarcely breathe, or stir even a hand from the comfortless attitude in which we were placed. We could hear them speak occasionally of our murder, in a careless and incidental manner. The captain expressed his regret that we had not, as matters turned out, been earlier disposed of, and made a sort of rough apology to his shipmates for the inconvenience our prolonged existence must have occasioned them.

At length the revellers broke up. I listened attentively until I became convinced that no one occupied the cabin that night. I then ventured gently to push up the trap-door a little, in order to give air to my exhausted companion. But the fumes that entered were anything but reviving. All was dark and quiet as death, and I could hear the rain descending violently on the cabin skylight. The wind was high, and the ship rolled tremendously. We heard the roar of the waters against the side of our prison, and the heavy dashing on deck of huge billows, which even made their way down the cabin stairs.

Towards morning, as I supposed, for with us it was all one long night, I again distinguished voices in the cabin. "It blows a stiff gale," was the observation of Jack." So much the better," replied the hardy and ferocious voice of the captain; "the more way we make, the farther we get from all those cursed government vessels. I think we might now venture to fall on any merchantman that comes in our way. We must soon do something, for we have as yet made but a sorry profit out of our present voyage. Let's see-four thousand sterling pounds that belonged to the captain thererather to us-seeing we had taken them on board."" Yes, yes, we have sacked the captain," observed Jack, facetiously. His companion went on-"His watch, rings, and clothes; and two thousand dollars of the countess's, and her jewels,

amounting, perhaps, to another two thousand. This might be a fine prize to a sixteen-gun brig of some dozing government, but the Demon was built for greater things.""I suppose, captain," said Jack, "we go on our usual plan, eh? The specie to be distributed among the ship's company, and the jewels and personals to be appropriated, in a quiet way, by the officers? And, for once in way, I hope there be no breach of discipline, Captain Vanderleer, in asking where might be deposited that secret casket, containing-you and I and one or two more know what? I mean that we took from the Spanish-American brig."" It is in the stern-hold, beneath our feet, at this moment," answered the captain.-" A good one for dividing its contents," said Jack. "I'll fetch a light in the twinkling of an eye."-"No need," replied the captain. "I warrant me I can lay my hand on it in the dark.” Without the warning of another moment, the Demon commander was in our hold. On the removal of the trap-door a faint light streamed into our prison, but it only fell on the part immediately under the ingress, and left the sides in obscurity. I suppose it was about four in the morning. I had laid Margaret down on some torn old signal flags, in that division of the hold which Girod had assigned her, and had myself retired behind my own bulwark of meal sacks, in order that my companion might possess, for her repose, something like the freedom of a small cabin to herself. I had scarcely time to glide round to the side of Margaret ere the merciless buccaneer descended. We almost inserted ourselves into the wooden walls of our hiding-place, and literally drew down the sacks upon us. The captain felt about the apartment with his hand, sometimes pushing it behind the sacks and sometimes feeling under them. And now he passed his arms through those which aided our concealment. Gracious

heaven! his hand discovered the countess's garments; he grasped them tight; he began to drag her forward, but at this moment his foot struck against the casket for which he was searching. He stooped to seize it, and, as his hold on Margaret slackened, I contrived to pass towards his hand a portion of the old flag-cloth, so as to impress him with the belief that it was the original object of his grasp. He dragged it forward, and let it go But he had disturbed the compact adjustment of the sacks; and as the vessel was now rolling violently in a tempestuous sea, a terrible lurch laid prostrate our treacherous wall of defence, and we stood full exposed, without a barrier between ourselves and the ruffian commander of the Demon. To us it now seemed that all was lost, and I leaned over Margaret just to afford my own bosom as a slender and last defence.

The Demon captain had gone to the light to pass his casket through the trap-door. The sun was rising, and the crimson hues of dawn meeting no other object in the hold save the depraved and hardened countenance of our keeper, threw on its swart complexion such a ruddy glow, as-contrasted with the surrounding darkness-gave him the appearance of some foul demon, emerging from the abodes of the condemned, and bearing on his unhallowed countenance the reflection of the infernal fires he had quitted. That glow was, however, our salvation. The captain turned with an oath to replace the fallen sacks. Anybody who has suddenly extinguished his candle, even on a bright, starry night, knows that the sudden transition from a greater to a less degree of light, produces, for a second or two, the effect of absolute darkness. And thus our concealment lay enveloped in utter darkness to our captain's eyes, dazzled by the morning's first flood of light. But it was difficult for the half-breathless beings, so entirely in

his power, to realize this fact, when they saw him advancing towards them, his eye fixed on the spot where they stood, though he saw them not; it was difficult to see, and yet retain a conviction that we were not seen. The captain replaced the sacks instantly, and we felt half-doubtful, as he pushed them with violence against the beams where we stood, whether he had not actually discovered our persons, and taken this method of at once destroying them by bruises and suffocation. His work was, however, only accompanied by an imprecatory running comment on Girod's careless manner of stowage. We were now again buried in our concealment, but another danger awaited us. Jacqueminot descended to the cabin. An involuntary, though half-stiffed shriek escaped him when he saw the trap-door open. He sprang into the hold, and when he beheld the captain, his ghastly smile of inquiry, for he spoke not, demanded if his ruin was sealed. "I have been seeing all your pretty work here, Monsieur," said the gruff captain, pointing to the deranged sacks, behind which we were concealed. I caught a glimpse through them of Girod's despairing countenance. It was a fearful moment, for it seemed as if we were about to be involuntarily betrayed by our ally, at the very instant when we had escaped our enemy. Girod's teeth literally chattered, and he murmured something about French gallantry and honor; and the countess being a lady, and the Captain Francillon an old acquaintance. "And so because you cut the throats of a couple of solan geese as your duty was, at your captain's command-you think he must not even see to the righting of his own stern-hold?" said the captain, with a gruff and abortive effort at pleasantry, for he felt Girod's importance in amusing and keeping in good humor his motley crew. Jacqueminot's answer showed that he was now au fait, and thus we had a

fourth rescue from the very jaws of death.

Day after day passed away, and still we were the miserable, halfstarved, half-suffocated, though unknown prisoners of the Demon gang, holding our lives, as it were, by a thread, hanging, with scarce the distance of a pace, between time and eternity, and counting every prolonged moment of our existence as a miracle. Girod at this period rarely dared to visit us. He came only when the business of the ship actually sent him. The cabin above was now occupied at night by the captain and some of his most depraved associates, so that small alleviation of our fears-small relaxation from our comfortless position-small occasion of addressing a few consolatory words to each other, was afforded us either by day or by night. At length I began to fear that Margaret would sink under the confined air, and the constant excitement. Her breath became short and difficult. The blood passed through her veins in feverish, yet feeble and intermittent pulsation. It was agony indeed to feel her convulsed frame, and hear her faintly-drawn and dying breath, and know that I could not carry her into the reviving breezes of heaven, nor afford a single alleviation of her suffering, without at once snapping that thread of life which was now wearing away by a slow and lingering death. At length her respiration began to partake of the loud and irrepressible character which is so often the precursor of dissolution. She deemed her hour drawing on, yet feebly essayed, for my sake, to stifle those last faint moans of expiring nature which might betray our concealment. I became sensible that the latter could not much longer remain a secret, and, with a strange calmness, made up my mind to the coming decisive hour. I supported Margaret's head, poured a faltering prayer into her dying ear, wiped the deathdews from her face, and essayed to