es, the rustle of a chain among the straw on which he lies
gives an indication, that even in that dungeon it has not been
considered prudent to leave him master of his own actions, lest, by too
vigorous an effort, he might escape from the thraldom in which he is
held.

The sound reaches his own ears, and for a few moments, in the deep
impatience of his wounded spirit, he heaps malediction on the heads of
those who have reduced him to his present state.

But soon a better nature seems to come over him, and gentler words fall
from his lips. He preaches patience to himself--he talks not of revenge,
but of justice, and in accents of more hopefulness than he had before
spoken, he calls upon Heaven to succour him in his deep distress.

Then all is still, and the prisoner appears to have resigned himself
once more to the calmness of expectation or of despair; but hark! his
sense of hearing, rendered doubly acute by lying so long alone in nearly
darkness, and in positive silence, detects sounds which, to ordinary
mortal powers of perception, would have been by far too indistinct to
produce any tangible effect upon the senses.

It is the sound of feet--on, on they come; far overhead he hears them;
they beat the green earth--that sweet, verdant sod, which he may never
see again--with an impatient tread. Nearer and nearer still; and now
they pause; he listens with all the intensity of one who listens for
existence; some one comes; there is a lumbering noise--a hasty footstep;
he hears some one labouring for breath--panting like a hunted hare; his
dungeon door is opened, and there totters in a man, tall and gaunt; he
reels like one intoxicated; fatigue has done more than the work of
inebriation; he cannot save himself, and he sinks exhausted by the side
of that lonely prisoner.

The captive raises himself as far as his chains will allow him; he
clutches the throat of his enervated visitor.

"Villain, monster, vampyre!" he shrieks, "I have thee now;" and locked
in a deadly embrace, they roll upon the damp earth, struggling for life
together.

* * * * *

It is mid-day at Bannerworth Hall, and Flora is looking from the
casement anxiously expecting the arrival of her brothers. She had seen,
from some of the topmost windows of the Hall, that the whole
neighbourhood had been in a state of commotion, but little did she guess
the cause of so much tumult, or that it in any way concerned her.

She ha