he French
vessel soon found that she could not escape from her pursuer. She
disdained to refuse the combat, and the two vessels commenced
cannonading each other.

For several hours a sanguinary conflict was kept up, when the Canadian
sailor, dashed with blood, and blackened with powder, ran towards the
child and lifting it in his arms, carried it to the gangway. There, in
the midst of the tumult, with blood running over the decks, amidst the
confusion of cries and the crash of falling masts, he wished to engrave
on the child's memory the circumstance of a separation, of which he had
a strong presentiment. In this moment, which should leave even upon the
memory of an infant, a souvenir that would never be effaced, he called
out to the child, while shielding it with his huge body, "Kneel, my
son!"

The child knelt, trembling with affright.

"You see what is going on?"

"I am afraid," murmured Fabian, "the blood--the noise--" and saying this
he hid himself in the arms of his protector.

"It is well," replied the Canadian, in a solemn tone. "Never forget,
then, that in this moment, a sailor, a man who loved you as his own
life, said to you--_kneel and pray for your mother_!"

He was not permitted to finish the speech. At that moment a bullet
struck him and his blood spouting over the child, caused it to utter a
lamentable cry. The Canadian had just strength left to press the boy to
his breast, and to add some words; but in so low a tone that Fabian
could only comprehend a single phrase. It was the continuation of what
he had been saying--"_Your mother_--_whom I found_--_dead beside you_."

With this speech ended the consciousness of the sailor. He was not
dead, however; his wound did not prove fatal.

When he came to his senses again he found himself in the fetid hold of a
ship. A terrible thirst devoured him. He called out in a feeble voice,
but no one answered him. He perceived that he was a prisoner, and he
wept for the loss of his liberty, but still more for that of the adopted
son that Providence had given him.

What became of Fabian? That the history of the "Wood-Rangers" will tell
us; but before crossing from the prologue of our drama--before crossing
from Europe to America--a few events connected with the tragedy of
Elanchovi remain to be told.

It was several days after the disappearance of the Countess, before
anything was known of her fate. Then some fishermen found the abandoned
boat dr