The young Turk started.
"It is she, Hassan!" he exclaimed. "It is Strasolda, the Christian maiden!"
"Oh, my father!" cried the same voice in tones of heart-rending anguish. "How shall we deliver thee? Alas! alas! who can tell the tortures they will make thee suffer in their dreadful dungeons?"
The noise of the musketry became more and more distinct. Some of the newly arrived Uzcoques who had hurried up the winding path, were soon heard clamouring furiously for admittance at the castle gates.
"They will be too late!" exclaimed the maiden, wringing her hands in despair. The next moment a sudden thought seemed to flash across her mind, lending her fresh hope and energy.
"Gracious Heaven!" she exclaimed in joyful tones. "Have we not here the cave, from which, invoked by fire, the storm and the hurricane, the north wind and the tempest, come forth and shatter the most stately vessels against our iron-bound coast.[4] Up, Uzcoques, and fire the cavern! Let the elements do battle for us. Perchance by their aid the bark of your leader Dansowich may yet escape its foes and reach the haven."
Immediately after these words, which made the two Moslems quail, the pirate's daughter hastily entered the cavern with a blazing torch, the flashes of which awakened from slumber into life and glow the various tints of mosses, lichens, and stalactites innumerable that studded the ample vault. In this flitting and singular illumination, the appearance of the Uzcoque maiden was awful. Above the common stature of woman, and finely formed, she was attired in a white woollen garment, carelessly adjusted and confined at the waist by broad red girdle, from which it fell in long and graceful folds to her feet. Her face was a perfect oval; her features of regular and striking beauty; her complexion, naturally of that clear rich brown, which lends more lustre to the eyes than the purest red and white, was now ghastly with intense alarm; and this death-like paleness imparted a more prominent and commanding character to her well-defined, jet-black brows, and the full, dark, humid eyes, which gleamed like brilliants through their long lashes. Heavy tresses of raven hair, escaping beneath her turban-like head-dress, streamed out like a sable banner as she rushed into the cavern, then fell and flowed in waving luxuriance over neck and shoulders to her girdle. The Turks in the interior of the cavern, gazed in speechless wonder at this beautiful apparition standing erect in the strong red light. Waving her torch with energetic and graceful action, she appeared like an antique sybil at the moment of inspiration, or some Arabian enchantress preparing for an incantation. Their admiration, however, yielded to alarm, when they beheld her dash the torch upon the ground, and her attendants pile upon it straw and fagots, which blazed up instantly to the cavern roof, emitting volumes of smoke that made the captives invisible, and by its suffocating influence deprived them erelong of all power of utterance.
The evening was serene and still, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring, and the flames blazed upward to the cavern roof; only now and then a light breeze from the sea wafted them on one side, and, at the sane time, dispersing the smoke, gave the Turks a momentary glimpse of the maiden, standing with uplifted hands, expectation, anxiety, and grief, depicted on her speaking countenance, as she invoked the spirit of the storm, while around her stood the few remaining Uzcoques, with sorrowing and downcast faces.
"They come not!" she exclaimed after a pause, during which the fire began to burn low for lack of fuel, and the noise of the musketry diminished and finally ceased. "Uzcoques!" she cried in a louder voice, and with inspiration in her thrilling tones—"Take heed and warning, for your hour is come. Your crags and caverns, your rocky shores and howling storms, refuse you further service!"
She paused, and at that moment was heard the rush of a rapidly approaching boat.