"Fly with me, fly!--with thy heart and hand reward my love, and think no more of those grim walls, and sullen citizens, with souls as iron as their beavers, and hearts as cold as the waters of their river." "Oh! no, no, no! my father's head is grey, and but for me alone all his affections, all his hopes are buried in my mother's grave. He hates thee and thy cause. When I told him a stranger had rescued his daughter from the wave, he raised his hands to heaven and blessed him. I told him that that stranger was a follower of the Spensers'; he checked his unfinished benediction, and cursed him. But if he knew thee, Walter, thy noble heart, thy constant love, methinks that time and entreaty would make him listen to his daughter's prayer." "Alas! my Isabel, entreaty would be vain, and time is already flapping his wings, loaded with inevitable ruin, over yon devoted city and its inhabitants. Thy father shall be safe--trust that to me; and trust me, too, that what I promise I can perform. But thou, my loved one, thou must not look upon the horrid face of war: and though my power extends to save thy father from injury, it would be easier to save the wall-flowers on the ramparts of the city from the foot of the invader, than one so fair, so feeble, from his violence and lust." "Whoe'er thou art," she said, "there is a spell upon my heart which love and gratitude have twined, and which makes it thine for ever: but sooner would I lock my hand with that of the savage Spenser himself, when reeking with the best blood of Hereford's citizens, than leave my father's side when his gray hairs are in danger, and my native city, when treachery is in her streets and outrage is approaching her walls." These words were uttered with an animation and vehemence so unusual to her, that Walter stood for a moment transfixed with wonder; and before he recovered his self-possession, Isabel, with the velocity of lightning, had regained her skiff, and was sailing before the wind to Hereford. "Curse on my amorous folly!" he exclaimed, "that, for a pair of pale cheeks and sparkling eyes, has perhaps ruined a better concerted stratagem than ever entered the brain of the Grecian Sinon. I must away, or the false girl will wake the slumbering citizens to their defence before the deed is done; and yet, must I devote her to the foul grasp of ruffian violence? No, no! my power is equal to save or to destroy." As he uttered these words he rapidly ascended the rocks which skirted that part of the banks of the river on which he stood, and was soon lost among the wild woods that crowned their summit.