Fitz-Ullin, for reply, pointed again to the mass of devouring flames which floated on the water, enlightening its dark surface to a considerable distance. Julia involuntarily stretched her arms over the side of the boat, towards the terrific object, as though she could thus assist, and remained fixed in an agony of helpless horror, unconscious of her own attitude, rendered peculiarly conspicuous by the powerful light which necessarily fell on her uplifted countenance, and the palms, and points of the fingers of her outstretched hands; whilst her figure, in the dark boat-cloak in which Fitz-Ullin had wrapped it, was lost to view. In a few seconds, the condensed body of fire, with an explosion like thunder, parted in ten thousand pieces, each and all, resembling so many flaming torches, flew upwards, and passing each other through the dark atmosphere in circling arches, descended again to the surface of the water, gleamed there half a moment, and became extinct. Pitchy darkness succeeded to the unnatural glare, which had lit up the scene but a moment before, for no vestige of the conflagration remained. Poor Julia fortunately found, for her horror-stricken and terrified feelings, the only relief of which they were susceptible, in a passion of tears, as profusely shed as those of a child. She clung to Fitz-Ullin with an alarming convulsiveness of grasp. In his endeavours to sooth and calm her, and the bewilderment of his exaggerated fears, for the possible consequences of the state in which she was, he, from time to time, addressed to her incoherently, all the endearing expressions he had habitually used towards her in her childhood, calling her, in low breathings that no other ear could hear, his own beloved one, his own darling Julia, his own precious one, thus as it were enforcing each entreaty to her, to check the excessive trembling to which she had given way, and which, as it seemed rather to increase than diminish, alarmed him so much, that the arm with which it was necessary to support her, drew her, as each verbal persuasion to still her tremor failed, closer to the bosom in which she herself seemed to seek a shelter; while she, unknowing what she did, pressed his hand with both of hers to her heart, still beating tumultuously from the horrors of the scarcely past scene, and her sobs, for the few seconds it still took to reach the ship, continued audible and convulsive. A scene of so much emotion was, fortunately, shrouded by the total darkness that prevailed. Fitz-Ullin carried her himself up the side of the Euphrasia, and to the cabin of Lady Oswald; where, with the assistance of that lady and her maid, he laid her on a sofa, still wrapped in the already mentioned boat-cloak.