f her
form; and then, in a wild paroxysm of silent tearless grief, threw
himself suddenly on the edge of the couch, and clasping her in a long
close embrace to his audibly beating heart, lay like one bereft of all
sense and consciousness of surrounding objects.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

* * * * * * * * *

WACOUSTA;

or

THE PROPHECY.

Volume Three of Three

by

John Richardson

CHAPTER I.

The night passed away without further event on board the schooner, yet
in all the anxiety that might be supposed incident to men so perilously
situated. Habits of long-since acquired superstition, too powerful to
be easily shaken off, moreover contributed to the dejection of the
mariners, among whom there were not wanting those who believed the
silent steersman was in reality what their comrade had represented,--an
immaterial being, sent from the world of spirits to warn them of some
impending evil. What principally gave weight to this impression were
the repeated asseverations of Fuller, during the sleepless night passed
by all on deck, that what he had seen was no other, could be no other,
than a ghost! exhibiting in its hueless, fleshless cheek, the
well-known lineaments of one who was supposed to be no more: and, if
the story of their comrade had needed confirmation among men in whom
faith in, rather than love for, the marvellous was a constitutional
ingredient, the terrible effect that seemed to have been produced on
Captain de Haldimar by the same mysterious visitation would have been
more than conclusive. The very appearance of the night, too, favoured
the delusion. The heavens, comparatively clear at the moment when the
canoe approached the vessel, became suddenly enveloped in the deepest
gloom at its departure, as if to enshroud the course of those who,
having so mysteriously approached, had also so unaccountably
disappeared. Nor had this threatening state of the atmosphere the
counterbalancing advantage of storm and tempest to drive them onward
through the narrow waters of the Sinclair, and enable them, by
anticipating the pursuit of their enemies, to shun the Scylla and
Charybdis that awaited their more leisure advance. The wind increased
not; and the disappointed seamen remarked, with dismay, that their
craft scarcely made more progress than at the moment when she first
quitted her anchorage.

It was now near the first hours