n seeing him under such appalling circumstances; the
tumbling crags--the blazing fire--the dense smoke mounting like pillars
of blackness into the clear and happy morning sky--and, above all, the
agonised scorching figure of the wretched knight, writhing in the last
throes of mortal agony!

"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" exclaimed Fleetword: "Pray, pray!" he
continued, elevating his voice, and hoping, with a kindliness of feeling
which Sir Willmott had little right to expect, that he might be
instrumental in directing the wretched man's attention to a future
state. "Pray! death is before you, and you cannot wrestle with it! Pray!
even at the eleventh hour! Pray!--and we will pray with you!"

The Preacher uncovered: the Protector and his soldiers stood also
bareheaded on the cliff. But not upon the prayers of brave and honest
soldiers was the spirit of active villany and cowardly vice to ascend to
the judgment seat of the Almighty--before one word of supplication was
spoken, a column of flame enwreathed the remaining portion of the crag:
it was of such exceeding brightness that the soldiers blinked thereat;
and, when its glare was past, they looked upon a smouldering heap at the
foot of the cliffs: it was the only monument of "The Gull's Nest Crag;"
and the half-consumed body of Sir Willmott Burrell was crushed beneath
it.

While the attention of Cromwell and his friends was fixed upon the
desperate end of the miserable man, Roupall was crawling under a ledge
of black rock, that stretched to a considerable distance into the sea,
where he calculated on remaining safe until high tide drove him to
another burrow. Not so Springall: the moment he saw the Protector on the
cliff, he appeared to have forgotten every thing connected with disguise
or flight; he no longer sought concealment, but hastened to present
himself in front of the soldiers, who still remained uncovered,
expecting, doubtless, that such an event would be followed by exposition
or prayer.

Nothing daunted, he advanced with a steady and determined step, without
so much as removing his hat, until he stood directly opposite to
Cromwell, whose countenance, under the influence of awe and horror, had
something in it more than usually terrific. The clear blue eye of the
young intrepid boy encountered the grey, worn, and bloodshot orb of the
great and extraordinary man.

For an instant, a most brief instant, eye rested upon eye--then the
young seaman's dropp