"’If you value the lives of yourself and daughter, fly! A letter from the son of General Regnier, and addressed to the Signora Luisa, was last night found in your tent, and is now lying before the chiefs in council. They are at this moment deliberating on the mode of her death, whether by the cord or bullet: she is supposed to have acquainted the French with the projected assault of last night—there is not a moment to be lost—away! _A Friend to the Major Gismondo_.’ "I felt crushed and broken to the earth: for a time my mind was a chaos; then it was wrung with the bitterest anguish, while my cheek glowed with indignation and shame. Had I been alone, to have rushed to our nobles and repelled with scorn the insinuation would have been the thought and deed of a moment; but my child made a coward of me: the wild shouts of our lawless soldiery were ringing around us, and our stern chiefs were sitting in council, deciding upon the death of my daughter—my poor innocent Luisa. "We stole from the camp, procured horses, and fled; but not unperceived: we have been pursued fiercely and hotly, and have passed through innumerable toils and horrors. Our only chance of safety lay in getting on board the British fleet; or under your friendly flag, Signor Dundas. Thank Heaven! it waves over Monteleone; and I trust our pursuers will respect it: but deadly, indeed, must be the purpose of those who have followed us so rapidly, and so far, without drawing bridle." *CHAPTER IX.* *POOR LUISA!* Dusk had set in ere his relation concluded, and the exhausted girl had fallen into a deep slumber on his breast. Just as the waiter—who, probably, had heard the whole story through the keyhole—brought in lights, a party of armed horsemen galloped through the Porto Nuovo, and halted. "Which way, said you?" asked one. "The Centauro, monsignore," replied a voice: it was that of Da Fossi, our villanous host; and the same party of irregular cavalry we had encountered at the Villa D’Alfieri, wheeled into the inn-yard. "They come! O, my father—O, my God!" cried the unhappy girl, embracing her parent. "O, Signor Claude!—O, Cavaliere di Castelermo, protect us!" "My daughter!" gasped the old man. "Ah! the agony of this moment! Signor," he added, addressing me, "intercede for us. As a British officer you may do much: my daughter, she may yet be saved—spared to cheer the little time that is left me." "On my honour! major, we will stand by you to the last," I replied, while my heart melted at the old man’s passionate entreaties. "Let us close up and barricade the door, while a message is despatched to the castle for the inlying piquet." "Thanks, thanks, Madonna bless you! you may do much—and yet for what can I hope?" he muttered, with an air of distraction, as he laid his half lifeless daughter on the sofa, and looked round him for his sabre.