ws, the rending
and riving of her timbers, were unnoticed.

"There are ten barrels of powder in the hold; to you, as the man most
interested in it, I give the charge of the magazine. The barrels are
piled one on another. Yours should be a cool head and a determined
hand. When the last hope is over, when the brig is carried, as carried
she must be, but then only, fire your pistol into the nearest keg, and
rid the seas of yonder miscreant, whose white sails bear him to his
doom."

A rattling peal of thunder came from the dark mass of clouds, while a
vivid flash of forked lightning seemed to bury itself in the waves.

The soldier's face was pale as that of a corpse; as he removed his hand,
the lines of the mouth twitched nervously.

"Your orders shall be obeyed to the letter," he said, as he struck his
open palm into that of the captain.

The two stood for a moment on the deck hand in hand, looking into one
another's eyes. The stern, determined face of the old seaman showed no
trace of feeling as he spoke.

"Do not think, my friend, that I feel nothing. This was to have been my
last voyage. The brig was half mine. We shall disappear from the face
of the ocean, and in their home, in the mountains of Cumberland, a
mother and her two sons will remain in ignorance of what far-away place
holds the husband's, the father's bones." Suddenly changing his tones,
"Now, my lads, rig out a chair," he continued, "and we will lower the
lady out of harm's way. Captain Hughes, will you tell Dona Isabel we
are ready?"

It is a terrible thing, that waiting for death, to those in the full
enjoyment of health and strength. When it is met face to face in the
excitement of the fight, in the crash of battle, or the chaos of
elemental strife, it is terrible enough. When it comes to the worn and
exhausted frame, after months, perhaps years, of agony and suffering, as
a liberator, as a kind and merciful friend,--even then it is feared:
that step into the vast and unfathomable abyss of the future; that new
world, whence none have returned. But here it was far otherwise.

Life, health, strength, all were there; and take but away from the face
of the ocean that dark, beautifully moulded hull, with its long tapering
spars, and canvas as white as the driven snow; take away that floating
pandemonium, with its beautiful outside appearance, and its crew of men
hardened in crime, and steeped in blood and murder; and not only health,
str