“_You_ command me, indeed!” sneered the pirate. “You shall see then what weight your commands have with me. Come,” he continued, addressing the lady, “cast aside this muffling: you have a face, from the glimpse I caught just now, that can bear to be uncovered with the best.” Suiting the action to the word, the ruffian had torn off Alice’s veil, when Stanley interposed, and strode him a blow which sent him reeling to the farthest end of the cabin. He fell heavily against the brass railing of the stair-way, and lay completely stunned. It was evident that his head had come in contact with the metal in his fall, for the blood streamed from it copiously. The noise brought the other pirates into the cabin. Seeing their commander in the plight we have described, they raised him and placed him on a berth. Demanding next an explanation from Stanley and the captain of the brig, they seized upon them both and bore them on deck, where they were placed under a guard, and threatened, if they were guilty of another aggression, with instant death. With regard to the lady, considering her as the lawful booty of their commander, they contented themselves with uttering jests at her expense. Whilst the incidents above related were occurring, the brig had been got under way again, by her captors, and was moving on in the wake of the sloop, which had changed its course, and was putting towards land in a north-easterly direction. CHAPTER XVII. Fear was within the tossing bark When stormy winds grew loud And waves came rolling high and dark, And the tall mast was bowed. The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky. Their giant branches tost. MRS. HEMANS. About twenty-four hours after the capture of the brig, related in the last chapter, every evidence of a violent storm was abroad. The wind began to sigh, as if bewailing in anticipation the evils which its increased fury might perpetrate. Gradually becoming more violent, it raged with the violence of a young lion over its prey. A blackness, almost as thick as night covered the face of the sky, as though the Almighty were bending his most awful frown upon a devoted world. These indications were speedily followed by heavy rain, intermixed with hail, disturbing the ocean, swelling brooks and lakes into vast sheets of foam, borne by the might of the wind far from their original source, and inundating the land in a fearful manner.