nd which clasped hers, she whispered--

"Oh, do not let them kill him, Charles. For his sake, for he treated me
well; for the sake of that poor girl--spare him--I promised him. Oh,
hasten to save him!"

Her earnestness might have made a less sensible man jealous; but
Fleetwood knew her too well, and loved her too well, to have any other
idea than the true one, that she was anxious to fulfil a promise to the
letter, and in the spirit with which it was received.

"I will do my utmost, dearest," he answered; "I will do all you can
wish, but I know not whence that gun can have come; for the _Venus_ has
gone round the other side of the island. Keep her after the mistico,
Mr Saltwell, and hoist a white flag at the fore, to show her we mean
her no harm. Fire a gun also away from her to draw her attention, and
she will perhaps stand back towards us."

These orders were given as he stood at the top of the companion-ladder
before he conveyed Ada into his cabin, where little Marianna, almost out
of her senses with delight, was arranging a sofa on which to place her.
She again went off into a fainting fit, during which, while Marianna was
searching for restoratives, and the surgeon was making his appearance,
Fleetwood, as he knelt by her side, and called on her name, could not
resist the temptation of bestowing many a kiss on her fair brow and
lips, while he pressed her cold hands within his. The remedy was
efficacious--perhaps Marianna thought it would be so, by the long time
she was in procuring any other, as probably did the surgeon; for Ada had
opened her eyes, and was able to sit up before he entered the cabin with
the implements of his calling under his arm, which he had brought, not
that he expected there would be any use for them, but as a plausible
excuse for his dilatoriness.

At length, however, Captain Fleetwood tore himself away from Ada's side,
and left her to the exclusive care of the surgeon and her maid, while he
hurried on deck to endeavour to overtake the mistico before she got
under the guns of his consort, who, of course, was not likely to treat
her with the leniency he had undertaken to do. A generous man, when he
gets an enemy, especially a personal enemy, possessed of courage or any
other noble quality, into his power, has a pride and satisfaction in
pardoning him, and shielding him from punishment, and such was very much
the feeling which animated Fleetwood, when he endeavoured to induce
Zappa to