search of the Jewess, informed Ben Israel of the transaction, who would
at once have obtained his pardon, as the price of his daughter's
restoration and Burrell's punishment.

It will be easily conceived that on the night which Burrell expected to
be the last of the Buccaneer's existence he neither slumbered nor slept.
The earliest break of morning found him on the cliffs at no great
distance from the Gull's Nest Crag, waiting for the signal that had been
agreed upon between Jeromio and himself, as announcing the success of
their plan. There was no speck upon the blue waves between him and the
distant coast of Essex, which, from the point on which he stood, looked
like a dark line upon the waters; neither was there, more ocean-ward, a
single vessel to be seen. He remained upon the cliff for a considerable
time. As the dawn brightened into day, the little skiffs of the
fishermen residing on the Isle of Shepey put off, sometimes in company,
sometimes singly, from their several anchorings. Then a sail divided the
horizon, then another, and another; but still no signal told him that
treachery had prospered. At length the sun had fully risen. He then
resolved upon hastening to the Gull's Nest, with the faint hope that
some message from Jeromio might have been forwarded thither. Time was to
him, upon that eventful morning, of far higher value than gold; yet
above an hour had been spent in fruitless efforts to learn the result of
an attempt on which he knew that much of his future fate depended. He
had not proceeded far upon his course, when he was literally seized upon
by the Reverend Jonas Fleetword, who ever appeared to the troubled and
plotting Sir Willmott in the character of an evil genius.

"I have sought thee as a friend," observed the simple-minded man,--"as a
petitioner, I had almost said, so earnest was the lady about it--from
the Lady Frances Cromwell, to beg that the bridal, which even now,
according to thy directions, he of the Episcopalian faith was preparing
to solemnise, might be delayed until evening, in consequence of Mistress
Cecil being somewhat ill at ease, either in body or in mind, or, it may
be the Lord's will, in both;--very ill of a surety she is."

"This is trifling," exclaimed Burrell in anger. "She asked delay, and I
granted till this morning. I can brook no such vain excuse."

"Of a verity," quoth Fleetword, "thy reply is, as I deem it, given in a
most unchristian spirit. Thy bride elect is ill