tess muttered something
in no very cordial or acquiescing tone; and Bertram, drawing the
blankets about him, resigned himself to the consideration of his
present prospects. He was now so much recovered from his late suffering
and exhaustion, that he felt prepared to set his hostess and her
wolf-dog at defiance: but the scene, which he had just witnessed,
suggested another kind of dangers. He feared that he had been thrown on
a nest of smugglers, or worse: some piratical attempts had recently
been made on the Belgian flag off Antwerp: the parties concerned were
said to be smugglers occupying some rock or islet off the coast of
Wales: and into their hands Bertram began to fear that he had fallen.
Closing his eyes, he continued to ruminate on these possibilities,
until at length he dropped into a slumber.

From this he was awakened in the middle of the night by a hand laid
roughly on his shoulder. He stared up and beheld the old woman at his
bed-side.

"Get up," said she, "or it will be too late. Yonder's a French captain
taking water aboard: make haste, and he'll give you a passage."

Bertram sprang from his couch; recompensed his hostess; and hastily
prepared for departure. In the midst of this hurry however his thoughts
had leisure to revert to those anxieties which had occupied him as he
was falling asleep. Who was this French captain? Whither bound? What
was his connexion with those in whose hands he now found himself? On
what terms, and with what motives, had they treated for his passage?
When all is darkness however, the benighted traveller surrenders
himself to the guidance of any light--though possibly no more than a
wildering ignis fatuus--in the hope that it may lead him out of his
perplexities. And fortunately Bertram had little time to pursue any
train of anxious deliberations: for at this moment two seamen appeared
at the door with a summons to follow them; the French captain having
taken his water aboard, and being on the point of weighing his anchor.

Having made up his mind to take his chance, Bertram prepared cheerfully
to follow his conductors; first offering his acknowledgments however,
in few words, to his ancient hostess, who on her part muttered some
indistinct reply--without raising her eyes, or quitting her usual
posture at the spinning-wheel. The night was profoundly dark, even
after they had cleared the brush-wood and tangled thickets which
smothered up the rocky vault: the weather however wa