t the tide, which was ebbing when he entered the cave, had
turned, and was now rising rapidly. His first impulse was to return to
the spot where he had made his boat fast; but how was he horrified on
perceiving that the rock to which it had been secured was now completely
covered with water. He might, however, still have reached it by
swimming; but, unfortunately, the painter, by which it was attached to
the rock, not having sufficient scope, the boat, on the rising of the
tide, was drawn, stern down, to a level with the water; and Frank, as he
beheld her slowly fill and disappear beneath the waves, felt as if the
last link between the living world and himself had been broken. To go
forward was impossible; and he well knew that there was no way of
retreating from the cave, which, in a few hours, would be filled by the
advancing tide. His heart died within him, as the thought of the horrid
fate which awaited him flashed across his mind. He was not a man who
feared to face death; by flood or field, on the stormy sea and the dizzy
cliff, he had dared it a thousand times with perfect unconcern; but to
meet the grim tyrant there, alone, to struggle hopelessly with him for
life in that dreary tomb, was more than his fortitude could bear. He
shrieked aloud in the agony of despair--the torch fell from his
trembling hand into the dark waters that gurgled at his feet, and,
flashing for a moment upon their inky surface, expired with a hissing
sound, that fell like a death-warning upon his ear. The wind, which had
been scarcely felt during the day, began to rise with the flowing of the
tide, and now drove the tumultuous waves with hoarse and hideous clamor
into the cavern. Every moment increased the violence of the gale that
howled and bellowed as it swept around the echoing roof of that
rock-ribbed prison; while the hoarse dash of the approaching waves, and
the shrill screams of the sea-birds that filled the cavern, formed a
concert of terrible dissonance, well suited for the requiem, of the
hapless wretch who had been enclosed in that living grave! But the love
of life, which makes us cling to it in the most hopeless extremity, was
strong in Frank Costello's breast; his firmness and presence of mind
gradually returned, and he resolved not to perish without a struggle. He
remembered that, at the farther extremity of the cavern, the rock rose
like a flight of rude stairs, sloping from the floor to the roof; he had
often clambered up