"She raves," was Robin's reply, drawing the girl out of the chamber: "give my humble duty to your lady, and tell her that the son of Mother Hays is with her, and that she lacks nothing the world can give her now." As the girl departed, Springall came to the door. "Robin Hays! you must leave even your dying mother--something must be determined on. He is come! Listen to the guns at Sheerness, telling the island who has touched the soil on this side of the ferry." Robin stood for a moment at the porch, and heard the booming of cannon heavily passing through the air, traversing the low downs, and roaring from crag to crag, as if rejoicing in liberty; the ships that lay out at sea sent forth a reply, and in a moment their flags were waving in the wind. Robin returned for a moment to his mother's room. "Mother," he said, "for one hour I must leave you, but I will send some one to watch by your bed-side. Pray to God, a God of mercy, who has but lately opened my heart: pray to Him, and He will answer. I will be with you soon--a hundred lives may rest upon that hour!" His mother appeared scarcely conscious of what he said, but with her finger pointed to the chest. A new, but a most unwelcome light had broken in upon the mind of the unhappy Ranger. The father of his beloved Barbara he had long known to be a reckless and a daring man, with the stains of many crimes upon his soul; but he had now the terrible knowledge that the Buccaneer was a cold-blooded and hired assassin, who for gold, for there could have been no other temptation---- The thought was perfect agony, yet the Ranger resolved to face the man he at once loved and dreaded, and boldly charge him with the act his parent in her dying moments had communicated. "It will all be known," he thought; "there can be no pardon for the murderer--no peace for Barbara--the sinless child of sin!" CHAPTER IX. Mainly they all att once about him laid, And sore beset on every side arownd, That nigh he breathless grew: yet nought dismaid He ever to them yielded foot of grownd. SPENSER. Robin followed Springall into the room he had so recently left, and stood at the entrance; fixing at the same time his eyes, which, it must be confessed, were of unrivalled brilliancy and blackness, upon the Buccaneer, he said-- "Captain, I would speak a few words with you in private, after which we will talk of the danger that surrounds us." Dalton and Robin withdrew together, and remained alone for more than twenty minutes, during which Springall and three or four others of the crew, who had crowded, like crows into a rookery in dread of an approaching storm, debated upon and formed plans for the safety of their vessel. "Were all hands aboard," said Springall, whose youth joyed in perpetual hope--"were we all aboard, I would undertake to pilot that vessel over and under or through any one or any number of ships between Sheerness and Chatham!"