e
thought but of what he had lost, not of what he had gained; and saw in
Robin only the destroyer of his vessel, not the obtainer of his long
sought-for pardon. Urged by uncontrollable frenzy, he seized his
preserver with the grasp and determination of a desperate man, and,
raising him from the ledge, would have hurled him over the cliff, had
not one, weak and gentle, yet with that strength to which the strongest
must ever yield, interposed to thwart his horrid purpose. It was
Barbara, who clung to her father's arm: feeble as she was, the
death-throes of the gallant vessel had frighted her and her companion
from their retirement, and she now came, like the angel of mercy,
between her parent and his ill-directed vengeance. When the Buccaneer
found that his arm was pressed, his impulse was to fling off the hand
that did it; but when he saw who it was that stayed him, and gazed upon
the bloodless face and imploring eyes of his sweet daughter, he stood a
harmless unresisting man, subdued by a look and overpowered by a touch.

Barbara never was a girl of energy, or a seeker after power. She
considered obedience as woman's chief duty--duty as a child to the
parent--as a wife to the husband; and, perhaps, such was her timidity,
had there been time to deliberate, she would have trembled at the bare
idea of opposing her father's will, though she would have mourned to the
end of her days the result of his madness; but she acted from the
impulse of the moment. Nothing could be more touching than the sight of
her worn and almost transparent figure, hanging on her father's dark and
muscular form, like a frail snow-wreath on some bleak mountain.

Robin, whose resentments were as fierce as his fidelity was strong, felt
in all the bitterness of his nature the indignity the Buccaneer had put
upon him, and stood panting to avenge the insult and injustice, yet
withheld from either word or deed by the presence of Barbara, who
remained in the same attitude, clinging to her father, unable, from
weakness, either to withdraw or to stand without assistance.

Springall, who did not love her so much as to prevent his being useful,
was the first to regain his self-possession; he brought in his cap some
water that was trickling down the rock, and threw it on her pallid
brow--while Zillah chafed her hands, and endeavoured to separate her
from her father. At last she spoke, and, though her voice was feeble as
the cry of infancy, the Buccaneer heard