with which the fragile and delicate Jewess, who
had been clothed in purple and fine linen, fed on the most costly
viands, and slept on the most downy couch, encountered the illness,
terrors, and miseries attendant on a sea voyage in the vessel of a
Buccaneer. The Fire-fly certainly deserved every encomium bestowed upon
her by her captain; yet was she not the most pleasing residence for a
delicately-nurtured female. No murmur escaped her sealed lips, nor, in
fact, did she perceive the inconveniences by which she was surrounded;
her mind was wholly bent upon the prevention of Sir Willmott Burrell's
marriage, of which she had heard from undoubted authority; and it would
appear that she had no feelings, no ideas to bestow upon, or power to
think of, other things.

Jeromio's plotting but weak mind, never satisfied with the present,
eager for the future, and anxious to make it better by foul means, had
contrived to bring into use an abandoned excavation under the old tower
we have so frequently mentioned, which had been forsaken by Hugh
Dalton's party from its extreme dampness. They had filled the entrance
with fragments of rock and large stones; but it was known to Jeromio,
who, thinking that during his occasional visits to Gull's Nest he might
manage to smuggle a little on his own account, assisted by two other
Italians as evil-minded as himself, arranged the stones so as to permit
one person at a time to creep into the wretched hole, where he stowed
away such parts of the cargo of the Fire-fly as he could purloin from
his too-confiding commander. He admitted Zillah to a knowledge of this
cave, as a place in which she might shelter. He knew her to be a female
of wealth and consequence; yet had no idea of her connection with the
Master of Burrell, whom he had rarely seen; and though of necessity she
occasionally mixed with the people of the Gull's Nest, yet she expressed
so strong a desire for some place of privacy in the neighbourhood of
Cecil Place, and paid so liberally for it withal, that he confided to
her the secret of this cave--the entrance to which was nearly under the
window of the tower in which Barbara Iverk had been concealed on the
night when, by her lady's direction, she sought to communicate to Robin
Hays the perilous situation of the young Cavalier. At that time, also,
the Jewess saw Sir Willmott for the first time in England. She had been
on the watch ever since her landing, but terror for her own wretched