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THE

CASTLE OF SANTA FE.

A Movel.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

BY

A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER,

AUTHOR OF

JEALOUSY, OR THE DREADFUL MISTAKE.

Here will I hold. If there's a Pow'R above us,
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in, must be happy.

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THE

CASTLE OF SANTA FE.

CHAP. I.

Cold was his lodging-hard his bed;

Aloft his eyes on the wide heavens he cast,

Where we are told, peace only's found at last;

And, as he did its hopeless distance see,

Sigh'd deep, and cry'd, how far is peace from me!

OTWAY.

AFTER Adeliza's departure from the robbers' cave, their Chief, the unhappy Velasco, retired to that part appropriated

to his own private use.

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He threw himself

on

on his hard pallet, in a state of mind bordering upon despair.

"Oh, God!" groaned he, "how very a wretch I am! Does creation produce another so miserable, so tortured a being, as is the undone Velasco ?"

The vociferous mirth of the party in the cavern sounded in his distracted ears, like the bloody revelling of so many beasts

of prey.

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"Am I man!" exclaimed he; "and can I quietly consent to take up my abode in the den of murderers? True, I have as yet been but passive; still, might not that angelic creature, just gone from this horrid place, but for the interposition of Providence, have fallen a victim to the ferocious band who call me Captain?"

The bare supposition of such a thing, almost curdled the blood in his veins. For

a few

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a few minutes, the unhappy youth lay almost bereft of sense; the deed he might have witnessed, kept firm hold of his imagination he started from his lowly posture, and, snatching the sword which lay by his bed, with trembling hands he closely grasped the fatal instrument.

"Will not," said he, with frenzied looks, "this put an everlasting termination to Shall I then, coward-like,

my woes?

shrink?"

He staggered a few paces, and leaned breathless against the damp wall. He put the point of his sword to the ground, and leaned upon it. He cast his thoughts toward the future; all appeared a dark and dreary void, through which there did not pierce one single ray of light or comfort. Hope, ah, how delusive! was entirely fled. When he looked back, much misery was in the dismal

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