I started on hearing this, for the assassin of poor Captain Brook of the 11th was now covered by the muzzle of _my_ weapon. The speaker was a tall, rawboned fellow, whose form exhibited great strength and stature; he had a shambling gait, and a dirty visage of a very bilious complexion. His hair was black and shaggy; he had dark lacklustre eyes and large, fierce, blubberlike lips, yellowed as his broken fangs were by coarse tobacco juice. I had somewhere before seen this hideous face, the features of which gradually came to view as the increasing light stole gradually through the mulberry wood. How was it that this countenance, so pale and repulsive, the forehead which receded like that of a hound, the immense frontal bones, and the square jaw like that of a tiger, were in some sort not unfamiliar to me? Though torn and in wild disorder, the dress of his prisoner, grey silk brocaded with white, evinced that she was of some rank, and her arms, which her tattered sleeves displayed almost to the shoulder, were beautiful in form and of exceeding delicacy. "_Nombril de Belzebub!_" said he, suddenly, as he ground his teeth. "Come, come, we've had enough of this. Let us begone, lest those English wolves return." Then the girl uttered a pitiful cry, as his huge knotty hand grasped her slender wrists. "Kill me now!" she implored; "for mercy's sake, kill me now!" "By no means, my beauty--you must first see the black dingles of Hunandaye. I may kiss you as often as you please, but as for killing, until I weary of you, _pardieu!_ there is no chance of that." He was now proceeding to drag her along the ground, when I rushed forward, and by a blow of my sword, felled the savage to the ground. A small cap of thick fur which he wore saved him from being cut, but not from the weight of a stunning blow. With a dreadful Breton oath he leaped up, and with uplifted cudgel was springing on me, when on seeing my levelled pistol he paused and shrunk back, with a terrible expression of baffled rage and ferocity in his eyes. Judge then of my astonishment on recognising in this hideous fellow the pretended French deserter, the spy, Theophile Damien or Hautois, whom I had met at Portsmouth--whom I had seen run up to the yardarm of the _Essex_, and from thence consigned to the deep with a cold thirty-two pound shot at his heels! CHAPTER XXI. JACQUELINE. Had this man a charmed life? was he a vampire, a devil, or what? thought I, as we surveyed each other, and I have no doubt he recognised me, as he had seen me thrice before. I released the lady's hands from the handkerchief which bound them, and then raised her from the ground. Hautois again lifted his bludgeon menacingly, but lowered it when I levelled my pistol straight at his head. "Pass on, fellow--begone," said I, "or I shall pistol you without mercy. After our work last night, you cannot imagine that taking a Frenchman's life--especially yours--is a matter of much importance to me."