quire. Deeply struck and almost petrified with the words she had heard, she turned towards Beda with a countenance so pale and ghastly that the affrighted girl imagined she was fainting, and would have uttered a piercing shriek, had not Agatha expressly forbade her to call for any assistance. "Dear child, as you value the life and safety of a wretched being towards whom you have already been so kind, remain where you are; stir not, move not one step, I implore you, from this chamber. Let not those cruel and inflamed men once know that I have heard the words they have this night uttered.—I will wait in silence for my fate, and pray for some interposition of kind Heaven to save me from their wicked power. Alas, dear lady, they are silent now, and their quarrel is over," cried Beda, offering her mistress some drops to chafe her throbbing temples. "But did their words concern you, lady?" "Oh, too much, far too much," exclaimed Agatha ! "but hush! I hear that voice again-how strange, how mysterious !" "What voice, dearest lady?" enquired the little girl, in perfect amazement at the agitation which was now so deeply impressed on each lovely feature of Agatha. "The voice of the old gipsy woman! how comes she here?" cried Agatha wildly, and hardly knowing what she uttered, till feeling the tears of the affectionate child, who hung over her in the most unutterable anxiety, bedew her face with the warm drops of sympathy, and fearing that her agitated looks and manuer had greatly alarmed this innocent and un suspecting creature, she endeavoured for her sake to subdue her feelings and to recover her wonted self possession and energy of character; and taking the cold hand of Beda in her own, for the poor girl trembled excessively, she exclaimed,— "Dear Beda, be not alarmed to see me thus, I shall presently recover. I am conscious that I have been asking you a strange, silly question, but no matter-I had forgot what I intended to ask you; I meant to say, to what person does that voice belong which spoke the last in the chamber below?-Who is he? To which Beda, rejoicing to find that she was getting better, very quickly replied :— "That, lady! why it is the Captain! it was he who spoke last, when he was in that terrible passion." "And is that the Captain, Beda ?" rejoined our heroine, with a look which again bespoke the wildest agitation, and wonder, and astonishment, not to be described but by those suffering under the same tortured feelings. "Yes indeed, dear lady," cried Beda, "it is the Captain; but, as I told you before, he is seldom so angry as he was just now; he may not be so angry again for a twelvemonth to come!" Agatha perfectly shuddered at the thoughts of being this man's prisoner for a twelvemonth to come, and most fervently pronounced : "In a twelvemonth to come, beloved Beda, may I never hear the sound of that voice, to me more hateful than the screech-owl's piercing cry, more discordant than the raven's.” During this conversation between the mistress and the maid all seemed hushed suddenly to silence in the ancient hall! and either the riotous party had dispersed and broken up from their midnight revels, or, overpowered by the copious draughts they had swallowed, fallen into deep and profound sleep. "Shall I go and peep if the lights are put out?" cried Beda: "I will but just go to the end of the gallery, dear lady, and return to you immediately." "Go with speed and with the utmost caution, then!" uttered Agatha. "Leave me alone for that, dearest lady," cried the little waiting-maid in a low whisper, and throwing off her slippers she crept softly to the door, which she had as gently unclosed; but no sooner had she advanced to the middle of the gallery than, fancying she heard a footstep approaching towards her, she was on the point of winging her flight back, when a voice in the softest whisper possible cried, "Hist-gentle maiden, for pity's sake stay yet one moment !" As the voice had nothing in it terrible, and Beda was unaccustomed to fear, she replied in the same soft whisper, "Speak quickly then, I pray you, for I must instantly depart :-who art thou, and what dost thou want of Beda ?" "I am Wolf," replied the voice; for it was indeed poor Wolf; "oh take this billet to my dear and precious sister; it is almost blotted with my tears, but she will make it out when you tell her it comes from Wolf! do this, dear girl, and may angels reward you." "I will do all that you require," uttered Beda; "I would ask how you got hither, but dare not. |