cted from the tenor of the letter, which, sleeping
or waking, lay nearest to his heart. But the scene suddenly changed from
summer to winter--from calm to tempest, the winds and the waves rose
with such a contest of surge and whirlwind as if the demons of the water
and of the air had been contending for their roaring empires in rival
strife. The rising waters seemed to cut off their advance and their
retreat--the increasing tempest, which dashed them against each other,
seemed to render their remaining on the spot impossible, and the
tumultuous sensations produced by the apparent danger awoke the dreamer.

He awoke, but although the circumstances of the vision had disappeared,
and given place to reality, the noise, which had probably suggested
them, still continued to sound in his ears.

Quentin's first impulse was to sit erect in bed and listen with
astonishment to sounds, which, if they had announced a tempest, might
have shamed the wildest that ever burst down from the Grampians, and
again in a minute he became sensible that the tumult was not excited by
the fury of the elements, but by the wrath of men. He sprang from bed,
and looked from the window of his apartment, but it opened into the
garden, and on that side all was quiet, though the opening of the
casement made him still more sensible from the shouts which reached his
ears that the outside of the castle was beleaguered and assaulted, and
that by a numerous and determined enemy. Hastily collecting his dress
and arms, and putting them on with such celerity as darkness and
surprise permitted, his attention was solicited by a knocking at the
door of his chamber. As Quentin did not immediately answer, the door,
which was a slight one, was forced open from without, and the intruder,
announced by his peculiar dialect to be the Bohemian, Hayraddin
Maugrabin, entered the apartment. A phial which he held in his hand,
touched by a match, produced a dark flash of ruddy fire, by means of
which he kindled a lamp, which he took from his bosom.

"The horoscope of your destinies," he said energetically to Durward,
without any farther greeting, "now turns upon the determination of a
minute."

"Caitiff!" said Quentin, in reply, "there is treachery around us, and
where there is treachery thou must have a share in it."

"You are mad," answered Maugrabin. "I never betrayed any one but to gain
by it--and wherefore should I betray you, by whose safety I can take
more advantage