Robin stood for a moment at the porch, and heard the booming of cannon heavily passing through the air, traversing the low downs, and roaring from crag to crag, as if rejoicing in liberty; the ships that lay out at sea sent forth a reply, and in a moment their flags were waving in the wind.
Robin returned for a moment to his mother's room.
"Mother," he said, "for one hour I must leave you, but I will send some one to watch by your bed-side. Pray to God, a God of mercy, who has but lately opened my heart: pray to Him, and He will answer. I will be with you soon—a hundred lives may rest upon that hour!"
His mother appeared scarcely conscious of what he said, but with her finger pointed to the chest.
A new, but a most unwelcome light had broken in upon the mind of the unhappy Ranger. The father of his beloved Barbara he had long known to be a reckless and a daring man, with the stains of many crimes upon his soul; but he had now the terrible knowledge that the Buccaneer was a cold-blooded and hired assassin, who for gold, for there could have been no other temptation—— The thought was perfect agony, yet the Ranger resolved to face the man he at once loved and dreaded, and boldly charge him with the act his parent in her dying moments had communicated.
"It will all be known," he thought; "there can be no pardon for the murderer—no peace for Barbara—the sinless child of sin!"
CHAPTER IX.
Mainly they all att once about him laid,
And sore beset on every side arownd,
That nigh he breathless grew: yet nought dismaid
He ever to them yielded foot of grownd.
Spenser.