Between the current and my oars, the boat flew, like wind, along the waters; and I was already near the rocks of the ravine, when I saw, turning out of the canal into the river, a barge crowded with people, and glittering with arms! How did I ever survive the shock of that sight? The oars dropped, as if struck out of my hands, into the water, and I sat, helplessly gazing, as that terrific vision approached. In a few minutes, the current brought us together;—and I saw, on the deck of the barge, Alethe and the Hermit surrounded by soldiers! We were already passing each other when, with a desperate effort, I sprang from my boat and lighted upon the edge of their vessel. I knew not what I did, for despair was my only prompter. Snatching at the sword of one of the soldiers, as I stood tottering on the edge, I had succeeded in wresting it out of his hands, when, at the same moment, I received a thrust of a lance from one of his comrades, and fell backward into the river. I can just remember rising again and making a grasp at the side of the vessel;—but the shock, the faintness from my wound, deprived me of all consciousness, and a shriek from Alethe, as I sunk, is all I can recollect of what followed. Would I had then died!—Yet, no, Almighty Being,—I should have died in darkness, and I have lived to know Thee! On returning to my senses, I found myself reclined on a couch, in a splendid apartment, the whole appearance of which being Grecian, I, for a moment, forgot all that had passed, and imagined myself in my own home at Athens. But too soon the whole dreadful certainty flashed upon me; and, starting wildly—disabled as I was—from my couch, I called loudly, and with the shriek of a maniac, on Alethe. I was in the house, I found, of my friend and disciple, the young Tribune, who had made the Governor acquainted with my name and condition, and had received me under his roof, when brought, bleeding and insensible, to Antinoë. From him I now learned at once,—for I could not wait for details,—the sum of all that had happened in that dreadful interval. Melanius was no more,—Alethe, still alive, but in prison!