but
lately opened my heart: pray to Him, and He will answer. I will be with
you soon--a hundred lives may rest upon that hour!"

His mother appeared scarcely conscious of what he said, but with her
finger pointed to the chest.

A new, but a most unwelcome light had broken in upon the mind of the
unhappy Ranger. The father of his beloved Barbara he had long known to
be a reckless and a daring man, with the stains of many crimes upon his
soul; but he had now the terrible knowledge that the Buccaneer was a
cold-blooded and hired assassin, who for gold, for there could have been
no other temptation---- The thought was perfect agony, yet the Ranger
resolved to face the man he at once loved and dreaded, and boldly charge
him with the act his parent in her dying moments had communicated.

"It will all be known," he thought; "there can be no pardon for the
murderer--no peace for Barbara--the sinless child of sin!"

CHAPTER IX.

Mainly they all att once about him laid,
And sore beset on every side arownd,
That nigh he breathless grew: yet nought dismaid
He ever to them yielded foot of grownd.

SPENSER.

Robin followed Springall into the room he had so recently left, and
stood at the entrance; fixing at the same time his eyes, which, it must
be confessed, were of unrivalled brilliancy and blackness, upon the
Buccaneer, he said--

"Captain, I would speak a few words with you in private, after which we
will talk of the danger that surrounds us."

Dalton and Robin withdrew together, and remained alone for more than
twenty minutes, during which Springall and three or four others of the
crew, who had crowded, like crows into a rookery in dread of an
approaching storm, debated upon and formed plans for the safety of their
vessel.

"Were all hands aboard," said Springall, whose youth joyed in perpetual
hope--"were we all aboard, I would undertake to pilot that vessel over
and under or through any one or any number of ships between Sheerness
and Chatham!"

"Through their hulks, do you mean?" inquired Jack Roupall, who had but
just joined the party.

"I don't pretend to speak grammar or book-English, Jack," retorted the
young sailor, "no more than yourself; but all who have ever sailed in
the Fire-fly, as both you and I have done, know her quality, and that
anything can be made of her: I tell you, every beam of her timbers has
life in it--every spar is a spirit!"

"What sort of spirit?-