unspoken thoughts. The eyes glare like those of a hyena and the heavy lines at each side the under lip cause it to drop, resembling that of a blood hound, as the husky voice mutters to the mistress; "We have the devil at last. He kept quiet all day, with the milk sop Bulwinkle at his side, as though suspecting danger. We remained on the watch till dusk, when, cudgel in hand, with the skulking fellow who burned the tent following, he sauntered up and down the street for exercise, stepped into the Brilliant, and called for a glass of ale. Stephens engaged him in conversation long enough for Cunning Joe to hocus the drink. He took the ale and was ours. We then coaxed him into the Monte room to see the playing and to give the drug time to work. He imagines us to be a party of jolly Englishmen and is coming to a supper and a song. He is sufficiently drugged to be rash and talkative. In company is the follower, who evidently has taken alarm, seeking to coax the old fox home. Benbow is too far gone to notice him.Hallo! what man have you here?" The gaily dressed lady answers, "You and me. No body else." The gipsy replies, "There is a third. I saw a dark fellow just now, with eyes like the coals. There he stands against the state room door, and shakes his finger at you. He's gone. Have I been hocussed. I must be dreaming. 'Fire, knife and flood.' Did you speak? I heard a voice mutter 'Fire, knife and flood.'" Let this close act first. - There is now a sound of men clambering up the ship's sides, and then the tramp of heavy feet upon the deck, while a gruff, jolly voice sings, as the others applaud, Fire on the gun deck; the cannon balls rattle, Robin the pirate, is foremost in battle: Out from the wave gleams a white face before him; Listen again, while lusty voices join in the chorus, amidst laughter and wicked jests; Fill up your tankards to Robin the Rover: Home with the ghost, now his life-yarn is over. Let us shrink away, reader, and keep invisible. Here they come, rough, careless looking men; one or two of their number in gentlemanly attire, some aping a half drunken merriment. Cold eyes are gleaming under those shaggy brows, and beneath coat and jacket lurks the cold steel. Yes, Roger! You unearthed the fox, but the fox has turned and earthed you. Be wary, man, if you value life. This is the outlaw's den. The air of comfort and luxury, the savory flavor of rich viands, the odor of spirits and wine do not deceive the Forester. The brilliant light, flashing in the face of the leader of the band, discloses to him, however well disguised, the countenance of the gipsy, now wearing a look of mingled hate and triumph. Already the effect of the potion on the stout, well seasoned frame begins to abate, and, if it concentrates itself within the brain, serves there as a temporary stimulant, sufficient to assist the body to struggles almost superhuman. Faithful to the last, the whipper-in is at his side. The lady, whose sleek, well-trained voice betrays no suspicion of bloody deeds, blandly observes, "You are late, gentlemen. Supper is waiting." As some of the party hustle past the Forester, he feels within the velveteen coat, to find that the arms which he always carries are stolen. A bolt is shot; the cabin doors close behind, and now all are fastened in. The mind acts in hours like these with an intensity, as if the powers were concentrated a hundred or a thousand fold. In that instant the Forester revolved the chances of escape, but only to see that every avenue was closed against them. Their two lives now quivered on the turning of a hair. Bitterly the old man cursed his fate, but resolved, if die he must, to fall fighting. One concealed weapon slept within his waistcoat; what it was we shall see. No time was allowed for meditation. Two athletic men grasped the arms from behind, while a third drew over the face and eyes a heavy cap. The whipper-in was bound without a struggle; but they had miscalculated the strength of muscle in the Forester, and presumed too much upon the effects of the potion. Hurling away the ruffians, one on either side, tearing the cap from his eyes, and backing at the same instant against the panels, the old man shouted a cry for rescue, mystical, enigmatical, not here to be repeated; a cry that hundreds of thousands of the noblest and the best of men are always ready to respond to at the peril of life. Pirates have respected that cry when uttered by their victims on the high seas; dying men have gasped it and found deliverance when sinking beneath the ocean; prostrate combatants have been saved by it when trampled beneath the hoofs of cavalry on the battle field;-Roger was a freemason. It met with no response but a pistol shot. The Forester's eyes glared as if they were those of a tiger, but he was cool even in that moment of desperation. The bullet, designed for his head, whizzed by, but carried a death-warrant to the faithful follower, who sank, gory and gasping, at his feet. As the smoke, growing less dense, revealed the expected victim still erect, a second ball from the revolver buried itself in the panel work, slightly grazing the temple as it passed, while, at the same instant, a nervous, wiry arm plunged a stiletto. The thin blade turned at the rib and snapped. "On, men, on!" shouted the gipsy chief, and now his aim was sure; but, tearing open the shirt, grasping a solitary weapon, the faithful revolver, Benbow was armed as well. Twelve to one and no quarter! Amidst that whirling smoke, those glaring eyes, those rapid curses, the Forester sank down. "The wrath of man," said an ancient, "shall praise God, and the remainder He will restrain." Young Washington, on Braddock's field, bore a charmed life, while bullets pattered round like hailstones. There is One who guides the flight of pistol balls, no less than the vast movements of the whirling orbs of space. He walks amidst the atoms no less than above the immensities. There is a "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther," that hedges up the steps of crime, turn where it may. Even desperate men, in moments of despair, are made the agents of retribution. From man's anger there is a way of escape, but, when God drops the bolt of justice, it falls at the instant and in the very spot marked out by infinite decision. The sudden fall of the Forester was a feint; in the next instant the cabin kindled with light, the state-rooms were in a blaze. The old man, retaining presence of mind to observe a loose lamp burning in a sconce within arm's length, had snatched at it in his fall, and thrown it, with a rapid motion of the hand, into a heap of airy wearing apparel in the adjoining room. Filled as it was with combustible materials, the flames burst out almost instantaneously, leaping, as with the fiery tongues of serpents, from the gay couch of the harlot and spreading like fire in a harvest field. In the turmoil which followed the loud voice of Chivers was heard above the rest: "Kill him first, then burst the companion way!" As the ruffians surged toward him in a solid mass, the Forester waited till he met the very glare of the gipsy's eyeballs, foremost among the desperadoes. The two fired together. With a convulsive bound, the ruffian sprang into the air, the eyes set in their sockets, the jaws dropping, the tongue lolling from the mouth, the arms extended, and then fell forward, dead, on the cabin floor. Amidst screams of revenge, and wild and billowy flameeddies, and crackling of panel-work, and bursting open of doors, knife after knife riddled the prostrate body of the Forester; yet as the maddened gang, burned, panting for air, almost stifled by the smoke, rushed forth, the victim shouted that loud rescue-cry again. It rose, mingled now with dense and pitchy smoke, streaming through the hatchway, while the murderers, abandoning their dead leader to his fate, gasped for a moment in the cool air, pursued by the flames, roaring now, and shooting out their mighty tongues, leaving their enemy to perish in the burning cabin. None would have ventured again into its furnace of red heat for all the gold in California. Here may end the second act. We have lost sight of the enchantress, whose gay presence cast a final hue of festivity upon the terrific scene. Discovering that, instead of a murder in cold blood, there was to be a fight, she sought safety, at the first shot, in the state-room nearest at hand, closing the door for protection, and listening behind. She had fastened herself within a sarcophagus of fire. As the flames roared through the cabin, bursting in the thin partitions and feeding upon the heaps of clothing and the dry and resinous pine, the wanton discovered herself to be barred in. The spring bolt, shot in the confusion, refused to open; there was no key. Rallying upon the deck and now determined to make one effort for the valuables contained within the vessel, the ruffians, with Cunning Joe at their head, were drawing water and dashing it from buckets down the hatchway, where, feebly drawing himself to the foot of the stairs, Roger Benbow, weltering in blood, was still alive. For a few moments it seemed as if the conflagration might be arrested. But now, with terrific cries of agony and despair, having burst through the partially burned wood work, with costly robes. flying in a wild blaze and glossy and perfumed tresses leap |