"Twenty guineas a man to all who will aid her!" exclaimed Lady Rohallion, taking a key from her gold chatelaine, and hurrying to a buhl escritoire, while gun after gun pealed from a distance over the stormy sea; but they came from two vessels, one of which was hidden in a bank of dusky vapour. The lady grasped the old Quartermaster's arm, and her white hands trembled nervously as she exclaimed in a whisper-- "Oh, my God, John Girvan! what if Rohallion should be on board of her, with a foe on one hand and a lee shore on the other?" CHAPTER II. THE PARTAN CRAIG. "Prone on the midnight surge with panting breath, They cry for aid, and long contend with death; High o'er their heads the rolling billows sweep, And down they sink in everlasting sleep. Bereft of power to help, their comrades see The wretched victims die beneath the lee!" FALCONER'S _Shipwreck_. Inspired by fears, perhaps, similar to those of his lady, the Quartermaster made no immediate reply, but continued to watch with deep interest, and somewhat of a professional eye, the red flashes which broke from the bosom of that gloomy bank of cloud, which seemed to rest upon the surface of the water, about six miles distant. The wind was still blowing a gale from the seaward. Through the fast-flying masses of black and torn vapour, the setting sun, for a few minutes, shed a lurid glare--it almost seemed a baleful glow along the crested waves, reddening their frothy tops, and lighting up, as if with crimson flames, the wet canvas of the brig; but lo! at the same instant, there shot out of the vapour, and into the ruddy sheen of the stormy sunset, another square-rigged craft, a brig of larger size, whose guns were fired with man-o'-war-like precision and rapidity. The first vessel, the same which for so many hours had been working close-hauled in long tacks to beat off the lee shore, now relinquished the attempt, and, squaring her yards, hoisting her topsails from the cap, stood straight towards Rohallion, her crew evidently expecting some military protection from the castle on the rock, or deeming it better to run bump ashore, with all its risks, than be taken by the enemy.