“Griffith! Edward Griffith!” said the soft tones of Cecilia, “Griffith, awake!”
“Your call is useless, for they sleep nightly among tempests and boisterous sounds,” said Katherine; “but I have heard it said that the smallest touch will generally cause one of them to stir.”
“Griffith!” repeated Cecilia, laying her fair hand timidly on his own.
The flash of lightning is not more nimble than the leap that the young man made to his feet, which he no sooner gained, than his dirk gleamed in the light of the lamps, as he brandished it fiercely with one hand, while with the other he extended a pistol, in a menacing attitude, towards his disturbers.
“Stand back!” he exclaimed; “I am your prisoner only as a corpse.”
The fierceness of his front, and the glaring eyeballs, that tolled wildly around, him, appalled Cecilia, who shrank back in fear, dropping her mantle from her person, but still keeping her mild eyes fastened on his countenance with a confiding gaze, that contradicted her shrinking attitude, as she replied:
“Edward, it is I; Cecilia Howard, come to save you from destruction; you are known even through your ingenious disguise.”
The pistol and the dirk fell together on the blanket of the young sailor, whose looks instantly lost their disturbed expression in a glow of pleasure.
“Fortune at length favors me!” he cried. “This is kind, Cecilia; more than I deserve, and much more than I expected. But you are not alone.”
“'Tis my cousin Kate; to her piercing eyes you owe your detection, and she has kindly consented to accompany me, that we might urge you to—nay, that we might, if necessary, assist you to fly. For 'tis cruel folly, Griffith, thus to tempt your fate.”