“The ship tarries for want of a pilot.--I could carry three fathom over the shoals of Nantucket, the darkest night that ever shut the windows of heaven, but I should be likely to run upon breakers in this navigation. As it was, I was near getting into company that I should have had to fight my way out of.” “If that be all, follow me,” cried the ardent Katherine; “I will conduct you to a path that leads to the ocean, without approaching the sentinels.” Until this moment, Dillon had entertained a secret expectation of a rescue, but when he heard this proposal he felt his blood retreating to his heart, from every part of his agitated frame, and his last hope seemed wrested from him. Raising himself from the abject shrinking attitude, in which both shame and dread had conspired to keep him as though he had been fettered to the spot, he approached Cecilia, and cried, in tones of horror: “Do not, do not consent, Miss Howard, to abandon me to the fury of this man! Your uncle, your honorable uncle, even now applauded and united with me in my enterprise, which is no more than a common artifice in war.” “My uncle would unite, Mr. Dillon, in no project of deliberate treachery like this,” said Cecilia, coldly. “He did, I swear by----” “Liar!” interrupted the deep tones of the cockswain. Dillon shivered with agony and terror, while the sounds of this appalling voice sunk into his inmost soul; but as the gloom of the night, the secret ravines of the cliffs, and the turbulence of the ocean flashed across his imagination, he again yielded to a dread of the horrors to which he should be exposed, in encountering them at the mercy of his powerful enemy, and he continued his solicitations: “Hear me, once more hear me--Miss Howard, I beseech you, hear me! Am I not of your own blood and country? will you see me abandoned to the wild, merciless, malignant fury of this man, who will transfix me with that--oh, God! if you had but seen the sight I beheld in the Alacrity!--hear me. Miss Howard; for the love you bear your Maker, intercede for me! Mr. Griffith shall be released----” “Liar!” again interrupted the cockswain. “What promises he?” asked Cecilia, turning her averted face once more at the miserable captive. “Nothing at all that will be fulfilled,” said Katherine; “follow, honest Tom, and I, at least, will conduct you in good faith.” “Cruel, obdurate Miss Plowden; gentle, kind Miss Alice, you will not refuse to raise your voice in my favor; your heart is not hardened by any imaginary dangers to those you love.” “Nay, address not me,” said Alice, bending her meek eyes to the floor; “I trust your life is in no danger; and I pray that he who has the power will have the mercy to see you unharmed.”