oice. "Oh do not
raise hopes and thoughts and aspirations, only to hurl them overboard!
We rovers of the sea have but little time to give to wooing. Be mine
now and for ever."

Hilda's countenance betrayed the agitation, doubt, and astonishment
which filled her bosom.

"Dearest lady! I would not thus hurriedly press my suit, but any post
may bring me orders to leave the coast, never again to return. Your own
words betrayed me into uttering a prayer I might not otherwise have
ventured so soon to urge; but now it has been made, do not compel me to
retract it."

He stopped a moment to allow his words to take effect. Two or three of
his own officers and men only were within hearing, and his calm attitude
and manner did not betray the subject of their conversation. Her
countenance would have done so to Bertha or Morton, but she turned her
head towards the side, apparently watching the ship's course through the
water. No one valued her own position more than did Hilda; she had long
been taught the importance of keeping her feelings and words under
control, from the very reason that she was well aware should she once
give them rein they would run wildly off beyond her power. Her
thoughts, unhappily, she had never been able to command; and now she
found her feelings for this stranger--for stranger he was, though he
came in the guise of a kinsman--too powerful for her to conquer. Don
Hernan stood gazing into her countenance with as great anxiety,
apparently, as if his life hung on her decision. The struggle within
her--and a violent one it was--continued till it well-nigh overcame her.
She had to hold on to the bulwarks to support herself. Don Hernan
began to fear that she would decide against him.

"Speak, Hilda--relieve me from the misery of this suspense!" he
exclaimed in a low voice, which could but just reach her ear.

She looked up, and gasped faintly forth--"I am yours, now and for ever."

Don Hernan poured forth, with all the vehemence of a Spaniard, his
expressions of gratitude and joy.

"Happily, there exists no impediment to our immediate union," he added.
"I have, as you know, a priest of my own faith on board, and he tells me
that there exists on your island a chapel built by some of the seamen of
the holy Armada under the direction of my ancestor, and that, although
decaying, it is still in a sufficient state of preservation to allow the
ceremonies of our religion to be performed in it. Under hi