nothing else in our way when that's gone, except a broadside from their carronades when we pass them, and we can pepper them after that fashion quite as well as they can pepper us. That's itnow for cutting off the legs of that barking devil of theirs."

The shot hissed through the air, and, almost before we knew it had left the piece, reached its destination. There was a perceptible confusion on the deck of the schooner; their gun was dismounted, as the old tar had foretold.

“Huzza!” he exclaimed, unable to conceal his exultation, waving his smoke-grimed hand around his head; and the crew, now equally excited, took up the shout until the welkin quivered with the sounds.

Our gallant craft seemed to catch the enthusiasm and start forward like a high-mettled courser when he feels the spur. We were soon drawing across the schooner's bows, with every man at his quarters, and the matches lighted. Our piece, meanwhile, had kept doing execution. Most of the head-sail of the schooner had been shot away, so that she now lay unmanageable and at our mercy.

"Haul down your flag," thundered our commander, as we ranged up across her forefoot, "or I'll sink you."

There was no answer, unless a sullen though feeble shout of defiance might be called one, that floated across the silent waters.

"Then God have mercy on you!" said the skipper, and, leaping from the gun where he had stood, he gave the command to fire.

Instantaneously our sides were sheeted with flame; the ship reeled backward, quivering from keel to truck, and the iron tempest sped on its work of destruction. We heard the splintering of timbers, the cracking of spars, the shrieks of the wounded, and the fall of the foremast into the water. When the smoke eddied away partially, so as to give us a glimpse of the foe, we saw him lying a perfect wreck.

"We have surrendered!" cried a voice from the schooner.

A boat was instantly despatched on board. When we mounted the deck, there were scarcely half a dozen persons to be seen, for most of the crew had flinched from their guns and ran below before we delivered our raking fire. The shout of defiance we heard had proceeded from the officers and a few resolute veterans who stuck to them.

Our almost miraculous success suggested a plan to our skipper which he instantly proceeded to carry into effect. The speed of this schooner made her a dreaded foe; he, therefore, determined to disarm her men and remove them into the boats, after which he would set the prize on fire.

"That will be something to be talked of," he said, rubbing his hands in glee. "The English will never forget our having captured their crack schooner in sight of a squadron and set her on fire. By Jove! this has been a glorious night. We are getting to sea to some purpose."

This bold resolution was instantly carried into effect. The men were ordered up one by one through the hatchway, disarmed, and commanded to take their places in the boats. The wounded were then carefully removed; those who could bear it were placed with their companions, and the rest given in charge of our own surgeon.

"Now, my lads," said the skipper, "light up the bonfire, and let us, by its light, see where the British squadron lies."

The boats pulled sullenly away in the direction of the fleet, which they would have no difficulty in reaching, as the night was clear and the sea smooth. Meantime, the schooner was fired in several places, and, having satisfied ourselves that the crew could not return and extinguish it, we once more stood away to windward. Soon the flames began to break up the hatchways, rolling before them huge volumes of pitchy smoke that settled away to leeward, as if a gigantic black curtain had been dropped from the sky in that direction. Against this gloomy background the lurid conflagration shone in bold relief. The fire spread now with inconceivable rapidity. It licked up the masts, caught the shrouds, leaped into the forerigging, and shooting its thousand forky tongues in every direction, caught to the stays and other parts of the mazy hamper, until the schooner was a sheet of flame that blazed high above the mainmast and streamed far down to leeward, illuminating the horizon with the light of noon-day. The burning cinders floated off like showers of stars, and spattered on the waters continually. The crest of every wave in our immediate vicinity glowed like molten gold. At length the flames reached the magazine, for suddenly a jet of flame of intense brilliancy shot into the air, while the huge mainmast went up to the sky like an arrow from a bow. Instantly-quicker than the thunderbolt follows the flash-we heard a stunning roar that made our ship reel like a drunken man; then followed the splashing of timbers on the deep, the hissing of fiery spars as they sunk, silence and darkness. Awe-struck and speechless, we stood gazing, as if spell-bound, on the spot where the schooner had been. Nothing was to be seen there; but behind it still hung that ominous cloud. I drew a long breath. At that instant the moon, which had been concealed by the pall of smoke, broke through its upper edge and poured her pensive beams across the deep. It was like the opening of a magic curtain. By its light we saw the boats pulling rapidly away to leeward, where, on the farthest seaboard, the squadron was visible.

The night passed without further incident. We kept on our course, gradually losing sight of one after another of the enemy, until when morning dawned we found ourselves alone on the deep. Not a sail was in sight. I ascended to the mast-head to look out for land to the westward, but we had run it out of sight, and were now fairly at sea. The breeze was rapidly freshening, and the comb began to gather on the hitherto lazy and monotonous waves. There was every apearance of a rising storm, when we shaped our course for the African coast.

expand and swell into immensity at an hour like this, and how the littleness of human passions and human pursuits shrink me into nothingness! I would not enter the dread portal with a craven soul thrown from its balance, but with the concentrated manhood of him who hath been made little lower than the angels. Craven soul-manhood-mockery, mockery all! And life is but one vast field of falsehood, and delusion. We bind ourselves by enactments, by conventionalisms, the violations of which constitute crime or debasement, while the broad principles of justice remain inviolate. A crime in the eyes of man, but none at the throne of the Eternal; dishonor here, and it may be virtue before "Him, who seeth not as man seeth." Who shall open the sealed book of truth and virtue, and dare convict his brother of crime? Who hath looked into the counsels of the Almighty, and dare say thou hast sinned? Alas! alas! I feel as impelled by an invincible fate. Step by step have I been brought to this, feeling the error yet powerless

to resist.

Oh, false mockery of life! Yet one must stand with his foot at the verge of the grave, and one hand grasping, as I do now, the vast folds of the veil that divides the seen from the unseen ere he can realize this.

The clock strikes; every sound is told upon my heart. One-two-three. My God! how fearfully loud doth that small chronicler repeat the hour! It is as if all sounds were merged in that fearful toll, that shall no more come to my ears.

One hour more, and I shall be-what! O thou blessed and glorious light, how thrice blessed and glorious dost thou not appear to him who shall soon leave thee, and forever. And then, "brave o'erhanging firmament," that dost bend as in love over the poor erring child of earth, hast thou no voice but this of serene rebuke? Ye woods, and thou full-volumed river, ye will be the same, though he who delighted in ye shall know ye no more forever.

"List, list, O list. My hour is almost come." Methinks a gibbering ghost is at my ear, and I hear his sepulchral tones uttering

"Ay, but to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice." Avaunt! I will no more. With what a terrible solemnity every word awakens an echo in the dim chambers of my soul. I feel as even now had commenced the fearful doom

"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howlings!-'t is too horrible!"

I shall go mad at this. No, my own strong will, that hath dared to seize upon the distaff of fate, shall even grasp the reins of reason, and compel her to my bidding. She shall not abandon her throne till the last pulse hath ceased its beating.

"The firmament passeth away as a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat. And the seals are

loosed, and the book is opened." Life is but a point of existence-I behold all, all the records of the past. The faint, sweet revealments of childhood, the burning characters of youth, the stains of manoood, all, all are before me!

Oh, thou Searcher of hearts, who can hope for heaven, except through thy mercy? Let it suffice that thy weak and erring child, in his heart of hearts, did yet adore the good and the true.

My mother, thy gray locks rise even now to reproach me, and I feel it were a blessedness to kneel once more at thy feet and crave thy forgiveness. But thou wilt not curse me; if prayers and tears may change the fate of the doomed, thine, I know, will prevail.

Mary, my own sweet Mary, I have chased thy image from my sight lest it should plead, "angeltongued." But I feel thy meek arms about me, and thy tear upon my cheek. There are thy trusting eyes, thy low tones of tenderness. I had not dreamed of this, my beloved. I had thought to die apart from thee, but already I am independent of the laws of matter, and our spirits commingle. Thou wilt not mourn, my own dearest, my well beloved. Thou wilt even bring to thine aid a spirit equal to that of thy lover. Wilt thou not, sweet? Surely, surely it is but a moment. And say, my own true Mary, thou wilt never, even in thy soul, say, "he loved a phantom better than me."

It is false, Mary. Nay, verily it is true. For I leave thee to a broken heart, rather than face the bronzed visage of the world. Honor, honor! thou art a mockery.

Last night, my beloved, as we sat in that dim, old chamber, with its long rows of antique tomes, and the portraits of mailed knight and gentle ladye looking from the folds of the dark tapestry, while the moonbeams rested upon the chiseled features of Dian and her nymphs, methought strange shadows were moving in dusky recess; that lord and lady, and beautiful maid of which these were the semblance, animated canvas and marble shared again human emotionsthat men and women, whose thoughts peopled that old library, lingered amid these memorials of their existence, and claimed companionship with me, who was so soon to be a shadow like themselves.

My cheek grew pale to meet their strange eyes, and I strained thee to my breast, as if thy truth and innocence might shield me from the phantoms. Dear Mary, in part thou didst rightly interpret that tenderest embrace. Soul-felt, unutterable love stirred the bosom of thy lover, and thy dove-like eyes, and the meek pressure of thy arms were those of the saintlike, the sinless. Thou wert shrined in thy nun-like grace, and I was a spirit bridegroom.

Do you remember how long we sat, and neither spoke; and how the tears gathered in your eyes, and a mysterious sadness grew upon you? and then when I kissed away the drops, the words of endearment died upon your lips, and you leaned your head upon my shoulder, and wept like a sweet child.

Ay, my beloved, it was one of those marvelous presentiments that sometimes come to the good and

CHAPTER I.

Ir was a wild night in November. The wind swept dismally through the narrow streets of Bergenheim, the rain rattled against the windows which chattered in the casements of the quaint, gable ended old houses, as if they felt the chill wind from the mountain, and the dragon-heads on the red-tiled roofs spouted the water from their brazen throats in constant cascades. The tide of population had long ebbed away, and in the whole length of the main street not a land-dragon, nor a drunken student, not a Philistine nor a poodle was to be seen. It was deep midnight. At last, a single figure rounded the corner of a narrow lane, and entered the principal street. He was wrapped in a cloak, and held an umbrella, with which-close braced as possible-he was striving to make his way directly in the teeth of the wind. As he emerged from the narrow street, where he had been in a manner protected from the violence of the gale, into the open square which forms the mouth of the main street, the wind rushed suddenly upon him with the fury of an uncaged wild-beast, while, at the same time that he was thus beset, he found himself engaged in single combat with one of the before mentioned dragons, which spouted not fire, -which would have been desirable in the state of the atmosphere-but cold rain-water upon his devoted head. Covering himself like a Spartan with his shield, that is to say, with his umbrella, he endeavored to protect himself against the assaults of one enemy in the rear, while he boldly faced his more boisterous adversary, the wind.

The mo

mentary diversion effected by the dragon, however, was fatal; for, just as he endeavored to advance a step round the angle of the street, the wind caught a corner of his umbrella, filled it, and, in less time than I can relate it to you, turned it inside out and dashed it to the ground. So there it lay, fluttering upon the side-walk like a great broken-winged bat, shaking its brown wings and tugging at the handle (still grasped by the owner's hand,) like a living creature in pain and struggling to be free. Our hero felt that in an instant the umbrella, almost the only piece of convertible property in his possession, would escape and be borne away upon the wings of the tempest. He felt the handle already snapping, and, with a wild cry, he flung himself upon it. Still, imitating the Spartan, he resolved to perish or to save his shield, and in the gallant but desperate attempt he found himself stretched at length in the gutter, while at the same moment the slender reed of a handle gave way, and the umbrella mounted like a balloon into the black

atmosphere far above the tops of the houses. Just at that moment the warder upon the top of St. Nicholas tower blew his blast, and proclaimed the hour. "The clock has stricken one, One o'clock is the hour-"

me

But still our hero lay motionless in the gutter. Let "define his position" exactly. He lay at the corner of the lane and the main street, which, as I stated, emptied itself at one end into a great irregular gulf, fancifully called a Square. The dragon, now perfectly triumphant, poured hogsheads upon him, while the wind, disdaining to insult a disarmed and prostrate adversary, whisked lightly over and covered him with dead leaves from the withered lindens which decorated the place.

While he was lying there, then, and completely off my hands, there could not be a better time to make you acquainted with the other dramatis personæ of this little story.

CHAPTER II.

The Count von Goblinheim had a great dinner party. The commandant and the rector, and even some of the distinguished courtiers from the capital graced the splendid board. The count lived at his family seat, half a dozen miles from the town, a place which had belonged to the family ever since the fall of the Western Empire, and which, besides a spacious and very elegant modern house, built by Count Ulric XX, at the end of the last century, comprised the most romantic ruined castle in all that part of Germany. The old baronial fortress was a gray shell with two round towers, sixteen feet thick, still standing, and the ringlets of ivy which clustered round the mouldering battlements were, &c., &c., &c. You all understand me. It was the most beautiful ruin you can imagine, and had two undisputed and most desirable ghosts belonging to it, of three or four centuries' standing. The count had a great many acres of arable land, besides a fine park full of timber and venison. In short, he was one of the few instances in that part of the country of a gentleman whose rent-roll was nearly as long as his pedigree.

The company were dining in the great hall, which. was at the same time the family portrait gallery. It was I do not know how many feet high, but you had to go up a flight of stairs to open any of the windows in it, and it was long and wide in proportion. The roof was of polished oak, beautifully carved and fretted. The walls were hung upon two sides with tapestry, and upon the two others were the portraits