For a long time she would seem to absent herself from the coast, and vessels would come and go in safety. Then all of a sudden, she would appear again and several vessels would be missing, and never heard from more. The last occurrence of this kind is the one which we have already given an account of the capturing and sinking of the vessel in which young Billings had taken passage for Europe. We have already seen how Hellena Rosenthrall's having accidentally discovered her lover's ring on the finger of Captain Flint, had excited suspicions of the merchant's daughter, and what happened to her in consequence. Captain Flint having made it the interest of Rosenthrall to keep his suspicions to himself if he still adhered to them, endeavored to convince him that his daughter was mistaken, and that the ring however much it might resemble the one belonging to her lover, was one which had been given to him by his own mother at her death, and had been worn by her as long as he could remember. This explanation satisfied, or seemed to satisfy the merchant, and the two men appeared to be as good friends as ever again. The sudden and strange disappearance of the daughter of a person of so much consequence as Carl Rosenthrall, would cause no little excitement in a place no larger than New York was at the time of which we write. Most of the people agreed in the opinion with the merchant that the girl had been carried off by the Indian Fire Cloud, in order to avenge himself for the insult he had received years before. As we have seen, Captain Flint encouraged this opinion, and promised that in an expedition he was about fitting out for the Indian country, he would make the recovery of the young woman one of his special objects. Flint knew all the while where Fire Cloud was to be found, and fearing that he might come to the city ignorant as he was of the suspicion he was laboring under, and thereby expose the double game he was playing, he determined to visit the Indian in secret, under pretence of putting him on his guard, but in reality for the purpose of saving himself. He sought out the old chief accordingly, and warned him of his danger. Fire Cloud was greatly enraged to think that he should be suspected carrying off the young woman. "He hated her father," he said, "for he was a cheat, and had a crooked tongue. But the paleface maiden was his friend, and for her sake he would find her if she was among his people, and would restore her to her friends." "If you enter the city of the palefaces, they will hang you up like a dog without listening to anything you have to say in your defence," said Flint. "The next time Fire Cloud enters the city of the palefaces, the maiden shall accompany him," replied the Indian. This was the sort of an answer that Flint wished, and expected, and he now saw that there was no danger to be apprehended from that quarter.