of splintering wood, the
roar of the tempest, which had burst in fury over the doomed brig, and
amidst all, one loud, despairing cry, as though the last united effort
of a hundred voices. Pressing his lips to those of Isabel, his left arm
encircling her--

"Mine, Isabel, in death if not in life," he murmured, as he thrust the
muzzle of the cocked pistol into the powder cask.

The hatchway opened, the light streamed down into the dreary dark hold,
and he knew the pirates were upon them.

His arm tightened round Isabel's waist, his eyes glared upwards, and his
finger contracted on the trigger.

"Hold your hand, Hughes!" were the words which came to his ears, shouted
in his friend's voice. "Hold your hand! God, even at the last moment,
has looked down upon us, and we are saved!"

Volume 2, Chapter VII.

THE PIRATE'S FATE.

His passengers in the hold, Captain Weber, fully relying on the
soldier's promise, and certain his brig could never fall into the hands
of the pirates, had made his last dispositions. An old sailor named
Porter was at the wheel, the crew, as it had previously been determined,
were divided into two watches, one under the mate on the forecastle, the
other with Wyzinski, commanded by the captain. The break of the
quarter-deck had been fortified with a number of bales and boxes roused
up from below, an opening for the nine-pounders having been left. The
same arrangements had been made for the forecastle, and the companion
ladders removed. The "Halcyon" surged along, the wind aft, under the
little sail she could show, but the schooner was coming up,
hand-over-hand, the wind over her quarter. The brig already felt the
coming squall, and, had she not lost her masts, would have cared little
for the pirate. Hauling down his foresail under his mainsail and jib,
the piratical craft came sweeping up with the diminished sail. It was a
beautiful sight as her low black hull drew through the waves, her flush
decks crowded with men, and the long eighteen-pounder slewed fore and
aft. Feeling the first puffs of the squall, she heeled over, showing
the bright copper nearly to her keel, while the water swirled in jets
from her wedge-like bows. On she came, driving through the seas until
she was a couple of lengths only from the brig, and then a discharge of
musketry, and a shout to heave-to followed.

"Run up the Union Jack," said Captain Weber, in deep guttural tones, "we
will show them the temper of