“ I had laid Margaret down on some 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. ”

“ Margaret put her hand in mine with a gentle eonfidence, which our eircumstances then warranted, and I held her close to me. She stretched out her other hand to her female attendants, who, clinging elose together, each held a hand of their mistress. 'Dear Edward!' said Margaret, grasping my arm. It was almost twelve years since I had heard these words from her lips. Unrestrained, at sueh a moment, by the presence of the domestics, Margaret and I used the most endearing expressions, and, like a dying husband and wife, bade solemn farewell to each other. ”

“ We could discover from the varying cries on deck that the sloop sometimes gained on the Demon, while at others the pirate got fearful head of her pursuer. At length, Girod descended to the hold. 'The die is cast!' he said in his nativo language. 'The sloop gains fast on us. We are about to clear the deck for action.'—'God be praised!' I ejaculated.—'Amen!' responded a faint and gentle voice.—'Do not praise him too soon,' said Girod, shrugging his shoulders; 'our captain is preparing for a victory. ”

“ Alas! for their aged mother!' she said, while 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. But there is not a moment to be lost. I have the keeping of the stern-hold. Look you—here be two rows of meal sacks fore and aft. ”

“ She soon, however, gained comparative self-possession. 'I must be alone for a few moments,' she said; 'perhaps you will join me below in a brief hour.' When I joined her at the time she had appointed, a heavenly calm had stolen over her countenanee. 'Come and sit by me, my friend; our moments seem numbered on earth, but, oh! what an interminable existence stretehes beyond it. In sueh a moment as this, how do we feel the necessity of some better stay than aught our own unprofitable lives can yield!' Margaret's Bible lay before her. ”

“ Every girl of seventeen can be sentimental, but there are few stoics in their teens. I love to be coldly great. You charm me.'—'If heartlessness and mental superiority are with you synonymes,' I said, with gravity, 'count yourself, Miss Cameron, at the very acmé of intellectual greatness, since you can take leave of one of your earliest friends with such easy indifference.'—'Pooh! pooh! I know you are not really going. This voyage to India is one of your favourite threats in your dignified moments. ”

“ There is a sail on our weather bow. She is yet in the offing. Our captain marks her not; but I have watched her some time with a glass, and she appears to be a British sloop of war.' I grasped Margaret's hand. She faintly returned the pressure, but gently murmured, 'Too late.' Ere the lapse of a moment, it was evident that our possible deliverer was discovered by the Demon crew, for we could hear by the bustle of feet and voiees that the ship was being put about; and the ferocious and determined voice of the bueeaneer chief was heard, giving prompt and fierce orders to urge on the Demon. ”

“ Peaee be with the dead!—every filial, every conjugal feeling consecrate their ashes!—but make yourself easy; my mother-in-law is not here. You will find but one dowager-countess in this vessel, and she now shakes your hand, and bids you a good night.' Margaret hastily disappeared as she spoke, and left me in state—but I will teaze no one with my half-dream like feelings on that night. ”

“ That would do the job decently enough for our passengers—ha!' 'Oh! mine goot captain, you are man of spearet,' observed Jacqueminot; 'but were it not wise to see dat sail no more, before we shew dat we no vile merchanters, but men of de trade dat make de money by de valour.'—'There is something in that,' observed Jack; 'if the convoy come up, and our passengers be missing, 'tis over with us.' 'And de coot sacks wasted for noting,' said Jacqueminot, with a cool ingenuity that contrasted curiously with his vehement and horror-stricken manner in my cabin. ”

“ At length, a ship-trumpet, at a distance, demanded, safe and unhurt, the persons of Colonel Francillon, the Countess of Falcondale, and two female domestics. It was then evident that the pirate's stratagem at Malta had transpired. The Demon's trumpet made brief and audacious reply:—'Go seek them at the bottom of the sea.' A broadside from the sloop answered this impudent injunction, and was followed by a complement in kind from the Demon, evidently discharged from a greater number of guns. Long and desperately raged the combat above us ”

“ I thought, however, that Girod seemed, by stopping occasionally, as if in the vehemence of speech, to draw them, as much as possible, towards my cabin. I then listened with an intentness which made me almost fear to brcathe. 'But again I say, Jack,' said the voice of thc real captain,' what are we to do with these fine passengers of ours? I am sick of this stage-play work; and the men are tired, by this time, of being kept down in the hold. We shall have them mutiny if we stifle them much longer below. Look how that sail is sinking on the horizon. She can never come up with us now. ”

“ Seeing ultimate escape impossible, the captain took in sail, and dctermined to give his vessel the advantage of awaiting the foe in an imposing state of preparation for action. He harangued his men in terms calculated to arouse their brute courage, and excite their eupidity. I hcard the captain retire to that part of the vessel which had been the countess's cabin, and there take a solemn and secret oath of his principal shipmates, that they would, if boarded by a successful enemy, scuttle the Demon, and sink her, and her crew, and her captors, in one common grave. ”

“ The females sunk 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 merehantmen 'In—in,' he said in French to the eountess and myself. I immediately deseended, reeived Margaret into my arms, and was holding them out for the other females, when the trapdoor was instantly elosed and bolted, the carpet laid down, the cabin door unloeked, and Girod called out, 'Here you, Harry, Jaek, how eall you yourselves, I'vo done for two of dem. I ean't manage no more. ”

“ I took Margaret's hand, and held it up towards heaven, as if it eould better than my own plead there for us. All was silent. Not a sound was hcard in the once fiercely manned Demon, save the rushing of the waters in at the holes where she had becn scuttled by her desperatc crew. At last, as if she had received her fill, she began to go down with a rapidity which seemed to send us, in an instant, many feet deeper beneath thc wavcs, and I now expected every moment to hear them gather over the deck, and then overwhelm us for ever. I uttered a prayer, and clasped Margaret in my arms. ”

“ It can easily be divined that she had given her hand to save a parent, and that she had come abroad with a husband, who, dying, had there left her a widow, and, alas for me! a rich widow. If limits would allow, I could tell a long tale of well-managed treachery and deception; how the ill-natured eountess suffered me to remain in the belief that the death of Captain Cameron's niece, which occurred at A———, was that of my own Margaret ”

“ I tried to think if aught lay in our power to avert our eoming fate. Nothing offered itself. We wcre entirely in the power of the Demon buccancers. And I saw that all Girod eould do was to gain a few hours' delay. My earnest desire now was to inform Margaret as quickly as possible of hcr eoming fate. But after Girod's parting injunction, I feared to precipitate the last fatal measures by any step that might scem taken with reference to them. I therefore lay still until morning was farther advanced. I then arose, and left my cabin. ”

“ He added that she was a dowager countess. 'I hatc dowager countesses,' said I, irreverently; 'what is the name of your passenger?'—'Passenger!'—'Wcll—countess—what is thc title of your countess?'—'The Countess of Falcondale.'—'What!' thought I; cannot I even come as near to my former home as Malta, without again finding myself under her influence? My dear fellow, give me hack my passage-money, or accept it as a present at my hands, for I sail not with you,' said I. But a man at thirty-six will hardly sacrifice his personal convenience to the whimsies of twenty-five ”

“ Others deelared that she had the power, through her evil agents, of raising sueh a strange, dense, and portentous mist in the atmosphere, as prevented her victims from descrying her approach until they fell, as it were, into her very jaws. Innumerable were the vessels that had left different ports in the Meditcrranean to disappear forvever. It seemcd the cruel practice of the Demon to sink her victims in their own vessels.
The Demon Ship was talked of from thc ports of the Lcvant to Gibraltar; and no vessel held herself in secure waters until she had passed the Straits. ”

“ We all then remained silent, our quick beating hearts raised in prayer, and our ear open to every sound that seemed to approach the eabin. The oeeun must undoubtedly be our grave; but whether the wave, the eord, the pistol, or the dagger, would be the instrument of our destruction, we knew not. ”

“ At this moment, voices werc heard; weights scemed to be removed from the trap-door! It was opened; and the words, 'Good heaven! the fellow is right; they are hcre, sure enough!' met my almost incredulous ear. I bcheld a British officer, a sailor or two, and Girod, with his hands tied bchind him. I hcld up my precious burden, who was received into thc arms of her compatriots, and then, like one in a dream, sprang from my long prison. Perhaps it might be well that Margaret's eye was half-closed in death at that moment; for the deck of the sinking Demon offered no spectacle for woman's eye. ”

“ And for early friends, and so forth, you have contrived to live within a few hundred feet of them without coming in their sight for the last month; so they eannot be so very dear.'—'Listen to me, Margaret,' said I, with a grave, and, as I think, manly dignity of hearing; 'I offered you the honest and ardent, though worthless gift of a heart, whose best affections you entirely possessed. I am not eoxcomb enough to suppose that I can at pleasure storm the affections of any woman ”

“ Dey take not no notice. Miladi tink but of moon, and stars, and book; and for do sleeping Lyon dere, it were almost pity to cut his troat in any case. He ver coot faillow; like we chosen speerit. Sacre-bleu! ”