On the present subject, however, she found it difficult to oppose any arguments that were not immediately overturned by his impetuous and irresistible rhetoric: neither her education nor the precepts of her religion afforded support to the merciful pleadings of her nature; she could only urge that instinctive feeling which cries aloud from the depths of every human heart, that forbearance and forgiveness ought to be the virtues of erring man. Sebastian’s vehement passions were deaf to the voice of her softer sentiments; pity and mercy could not make themselves heard, where insulted honour, love outraged into hatred, wounded pride, and disappointed confidence, were clamorous for retribution: he sought to teach her the lesson man learns from his cradle, that to preserve reputation he must often do violence to his character, and seek revenge where he would willingly concede pardon. Ah fatal and monstrous spell, which not even Christianity itself has yet had power to dissolve!--by thy enchantment the sacred laws of humanity are disregarded, and murder is enrolled in the catalogue of honourable deeds! Aziek had nothing to urge against opinions which she was thus told were sanctioned by great authorities; she could only repeat her native abhorrence to whatever was the effect rather of passion than of reason. To appease justice and to satiate revenge, were in her estimation very different things, and she strove to convince Sebastian that true dignity resided with the former. Sometimes her gentle persuasives conquered: he would listen delighted to the music of her voice and the tenderness of her sentiments; his heart would melt under their genial softness, till the perfidious Antonio, his court, his crown, his wrongs, and his deprivations, all forgotten, he would remember only that he lived to love and to be loved by her. CHAP. VI. Hitherto light airs and cheering suns had accompanied them on their voyage, but now the weather changed; thick clouds arose, volume after volume, from the horizon, till the whole heavens were darkened; a hollow wind muttered among these threatening clouds, and the turbid sea seemed to labour with an approaching storm. It was on the sixteenth day of their voyage that the tempest burst forth. A tremendous gale from the south-west began to blow, accompanied with lightning and hail; the ship drove before the blast, her rigging all torn, and the waves washing over her deck: every peal of thunder was followed by ghastly yelling of shrill winds, a thousand times more dreary than thunder. The rattling of hail and rain among her cordage, the flapping of her wet sails, the creaking of her masts, the confused sound of voices and feet, as the sailors hurried to and fro along the deck, the tremendous roaring of the sea, all struck terror to Kara Aziek; she sat trembling in her cabin, listening to every sound, and sensible to hope only when she saw Sebastian.