"Nay, no evil spirit, but a poor denizen of those countries which lie beneath the sun. Sir Robert Barton, the admiral, swears they are half men and half marmosets; but Father St. Bernard told me they were the descendants of Cain. I am not afraid of it--nay, not I," said the tall knight of Corstorphine, as he drew on his military gloves, and--but not without some repugnance--seized the hands of Sabrino, and drew him into the room. The poor black boy, whose aspect was now deplorable, fell on his knees, and poured forth his thanks in frightful mutterings, that seemed to come from the bottom of his throat, and lolled out the fragment of his tongue in a way that produced a striking effect on old Lintstock, and, to say the least of it, was very unearthly. The old cannonier clenched his axe in one hand, his wine-pot in the other, and recoiled as from a snake. "Lintstock," said Forrester, "thou hast seen this creature before; dost understand its gibberish?" "It is thanking you, as I think, sir; but it looks gey wolfish-like at the last of the powt pie." "Right, Lintstock," said Leslie, placing the dish before Sabrino. The famished negro gave him a glance of intense thankfulness, and straightway plunged his black fingers into the pie, of which he ate voraciously. After the night of the earl's adventure on the island, of the countess's baffled flight, the duel with Sir James Hamilton, and of Ashkirk's disappearance with Sybil in the boat, Sabrino, who had escaped all the arquebuse shots by ducking in the water and clinging to the weed-covered rocks, next day found himself under dangerous circumstances, for the cavern which had formed his hiding-place being now discovered and searched, he had no longer any place of concealment; thus hunger and the danger of death made him resolve to put in practice a plan he had frequently conceived, but had not yet dared to execute. At certain periods a large boat came regularly from Leith in the morning with provisions for the garrison, and generally returned in the evening. An opportunity soon occurred, and Sabrino, diving under the counter of this barge at the very moment it left the creek of the Inch, lashed himself (with a fragment of rope) to the iron pintles which fastened the rudder to the sternpost. In the summer atmosphere of a warm July, the water of the majestic Forth was calm and warm, and the motion was pleasant and easy as the oarsmen shot their lightened boat across its broad and glassy surface, on which the setting sun was shining. Though half choked at times by the salt spray that flew from the oars, beneath the counter, where he hung, Sabrino, with unflinching resolution, endured the danger of being towed for three miles, and was glad to find that the dusk had fairly set in before the boat was moored to the old wooden pier which then terminated the ancient harbour under the rampart of the round tower.