“Liar!” interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain.
Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations:
“Hear me, once more hear me—Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with that—oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity!—hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for me! Mr. Griffith shall be released——”
“Liar!” again interrupted the cockswain.
“What promises he?” asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at the miserable captive.
“Nothing at all that will be fulfilled,” said Katherine; “follow, honest Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith.”
“Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by any imaginary dangers to those you love.”
“Nay, address not me,” said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor; “I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power will have the mercy to see you unharmed.”
“Away,” said Tom, grasping the collar of the helpless Dillon, and rather carrying than leading him into the gallery: “if a sound, one-quarter as loud as a young porpoise makes when he draws his first breath, comes from you, villain, you shall see the sight of the Alacrity over again. My harpoon keeps its edge well, and the old arm can yet drive it to the seizing.”
This menace effectually silenced even the hard, perturbed breathings of the captive, who, with his conductor, followed the light steps of Katherine through some of the secret mazes of the building, until, in a few minutes, they issued through a small door into the open air. Without pausing to deliberate, Miss Plowden led the cockswain through the grounds, to a different wicket from the one by which he had entered the paddock, and pointing to the path, which might be dimly traced along the faded herbage, she bade God bless him, in a voice that discovered her interest in his safety, and vanished from his sight like an aerial being.