ned in his ruthless heart,
or was breathed from his brutal lips; but curses upon curses came thick
and fast, till his tongue refused to give them utterance, and he fell
back in utter exhaustion. As the noise, however, of the bolt struck his
ear, he clutched the stone water-jug from the floor, and hurled it, with
a yell of execrations, toward the door, where the fragments fell with a
clattering crash on the stone pavement.

Grinding his teeth in his frightful passion, he howled,

"Let me but once put these hands on your bloodstained carcass, and if
the mother that bore ye will know her spawn again, my name's not Bill
Gibbs! Ha! you miserable swab, with your soft words and white hands!
when I get out of this hole I'll blow you and your infarnal hounds
to ----! Give me fair play, and, even on one of my legs, I'll cut the
cowardly heart out of you, Captain Brand! Come in, will ye? ye son of
the devil, and I'll bite the tongue out of your mouth by the roots!"

[Illustration: SHRIVING A SINNER.]

Here the hoarse and panting wretch again ceased his roarings, and
the padre timidly opened the door.

"Ha! who's that? Babette?"

"No, my son, it is your good Padre Ricardo, come to console you."

What the maimed villain replied to the priest, and what means the holy
father took to allay the passion and assuage the sorrows of the man
lying helpless in the dungeon, or whether successful in his mission, is
not important to state in detail. An hour later, however, the priest
seemed relieved in body and spirit as he retired from the loathsome
hole, and shooting the bolt as he closed the door, cautiously felt his
way along the dark and narrow passage. Presently, as he turned an angle,
a ray of light from the loopholes of the great stone vault beneath the
pirate's dwelling lighted his pathway; and a moment after, with a hearty
sigh of satisfaction, he seized a cord above his head and gave it a
jerk. A bell sounded above, and then a large, square-hinged trap-hatch
fell down, swinging gently to and fro from the beams above. At the same
time the padre put his arms about a square wooden stanchion which
supported the floor of the saloon, and then painfully sticking his toes
in some deep-cut notches at the sides, he slowly began to mount upward.
When, however, his oily shaved crown appeared nearly at the level of the
floor, a vigorous grasp was laid on his shoulders, and he was pulled up
like a flapping lobster and rolled into the apartm