brother's friend, here to save you.'

'To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart. That you cannot
do. Gomez, why do you not speak? Tell him, tell him!' cried Lesbia, with
a voice strangled by sobs; 'tell him that I am to be your wife
to-morrow, at Havre. Your wife!'

'Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be,' said Lord Hartfield, sorrowfully,
pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have pitied a young bird in
the fowler's net. 'I am assured upon undeniable authority that Senor
Montesma has a wife living at Cuba; and even were this not so--were he
free to marry you--his character and antecedents would for ever forbid
such a marriage.'

'A wife! No, no, no!' shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from one to the
other. 'It is a lie--a lie, invented by my brother, who always hated
me--by you, who fooled and deceived me! It is a lie, an infamous
invention! Don Gomez, speak to them: for pity's sake answer them! Don't
you see that they are driving me mad?'

She flung herself into his arms, she buried her dishevelled head upon
his breast; she clung to him with hands that writhed convulsively in her
agony.

Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from her lover's
grasp.

'You shall not pollute her with your touch,' he cried; 'you have
poisoned her mind already. Scoundrel, seducer, slave-dealer! Do you
hear, Lesbia? Shall I tell you what this man is--what trade he followed
yonder, on his native island--this Spanish hidalgo--this
all-accomplished gentleman--lineal descendant of the Cid--fine flower
of Andalusian chivalry? It was not enough for him to cheat at cards, to
float bubble companies, bogus lotteries. His profligate extravagance,
his love of sybarite luxury, required a larger resource than the petty
schemes which enrich smaller men. A slave ship, which could earn nearly
twenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make two runs in
a year--that was the trade for Don Gomez de Montesma, and he carried it
on merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got too
keen for him, and the good old game was played out. You see that scar
upon the hilalgo's forehead, Lesbia--a token of knightly prowess, you
think, perhaps. No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in a
scuffle on board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia--the living cargo
stowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and
then--short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rotten
sheep som