Is it Heaven that hearkens to her prayer? Is it the benevolent office of an angel that bursts the doors of the church at the very moment when she is called upon to yield that response which dooms her to misery forever? To her ears, the thunders which now shook the church were the fruits of Heaven's benignant interposition. The shrieks of women on every hand--the oaths and shouts of fierce and insolent authority--the clamors of men--the struggles and cries of those who seek safety in flight or entreat for mercy--suggest no other idea to the wretched Francesca, than that she is saved from the embraces of Ulric Barberigo. She is only conscious that, heedless of her, and of the entreaties of her mother, he is the first to endeavor selfishly to save himself by flight. But her escape from Barberigo is only the prelude to other embraces. She knows not, unhappy child! that she is an object of desire to another, until she finds herself lifted in the grasp of Pietro Barbaro, the terrible chief of the Istrute pirates. He and his brothers have kept their pledges to one another, and they have been successful in their prey. Their fierce followers have subdued to submission the struggles of a weaponless multitude, who, with horror and consternation, behold the loveliest of their virgins, the just wedded among them, borne away upon the shoulders of the pirates to their warlike galleys. Those who resist them perish. Resistance was hopeless. The fainting and shrieking women, like the Sabine damsels, are hurried from the sight of their kinsmen and their lovers, and the Istrute galleys are about to depart with their precious freight. Pietro Barbaro, the chief, stands with one foot upon his vessel's side and the other on the shore. Still insensible, the lovely Francesca lies upon his breast. At this moment the skirt of his cloak is plucked by a bold hand. He turns to meet the glance of the Spanish Gypsy. The old woman leered on him with eyes that seemed to mock his triumph, even while she appealed to it. "Is it not even as I told thee--as I showed thee?" was her demand. "It is!" exclaimed the pirate-chief, as he flung her a purse of gold. "Thou art a true prophetess. Fate has done her work!" He was gone; his galley was already on the deep, and he himself might now be seen kneeling upon the deck of the vessel, bending over his precious conquest, and striving to bring back the life into her cheeks. "Ay, indeed!" muttered the Spanish Gipsy, "thou hast had her in thy arms, but think not, reckless robber that thou art, that fate has _done_ its work. The work is but _begun_. Fate has kept its word to thee; it is thy weak sense that fancied she had nothing more to say or do!"