My sudden appearance had startled the three ruffians, and for a moment they stood idle, suffering her to dart between them; but at the sound of her voice, they rushed as one man upon me. The odds were fearful, but I felt, at that instant, as if I could have dared heaven and earth in behalf of that suffering maiden. Clasping my arm around her waist, and retreating hastily into the other cabin, I shouted aloud for aid, parrying, with a cutlass I picked up at random, the attack of the miscreants. But the attempt was desperation itself. Already I had received two cuts across my arm, and I could scarcely hold my weapon in it, when the foremost ruffian, leaving my death, as he thought, to his comrades, laid his unholy hand once more upon the maiden. Good God! I thought my heart would have burst at this new insult. My determination was quicker than the electric spark of heaven. Hastily releasing the lovely burden from my hold, I seized my remaining pistol with the disengaged hand, and before the villain could perceive my purpose planted it against his face and fired. The brains spattered the ceiling, and even fell upon my own face and arm. But the miscreant was dead. Oh, the joy, the rapture of that moment! I heard, too, as the report subsided, the death-groan of another of the ruffians falling beneath the avenging cutlass of our men, who now, victorious on deck, came pouring down the hatchway. In another instant, as a shout of victory rang through the cabin, I had raised the almost senseless girl from the floor. She looked eagerly into my face, gazed wildly around, uttered a cry of joy, and convulsively clinging to me, as if for shelter, buried her head upon my bosom, and burst into a passion of hysteric tears. The emotions of that moment were such as I had never deemed mortal being capable of experiencing. Feelings I cannot even now describe whirled through me, until my brain seemed almost to spin around in a delirium of joy. Yet there was a holiness in my emotions, far, far different from the common sensations of pleasure. I felt—I knew not how—a sudden interest in the fair being, sobbing convulsively upon my shoulder, which made her already seem dearer to me than life itself. I pressed her involuntarily to me; but a mother could not have done so with more purity to a new-born infant. Her sobs melted me so that I could scarcely keep my own eyes dry. “God bless you, my poor, sweet girl,” I said in a husky voice, “you are among friends now.” The tone, the words went to her very heart; she clasped me convulsively again, and burst into a fresh flood of tears. Poor dove! she had just escaped from the hands of the spoiler, and fluttered, as yet, involuntarily on her rescuer’s bosom.