“He was a most unworthy scoundrel! But, Alice----” “Nay, listen, John,” she continued, urged to even a keener interest in his behalf by his apparent inattention; “and yet I should speak tenderly of his failings, for he is already numbered with the dead! One part of his scheme must have been frustrated; for he intended to destroy that schooner which you call the Ariel, and to have taken the person of the young Barnstable.” “In both of which he has failed! The person of Barnstable I have rescued, and the Ariel has been stricken by a hand far mightier than any of this world!--she is wrecked.” “Then is the frigate your only means of escape! Hasten, John, and seem not so proud and heedless; for the hour may come when all your daring will not profit ye against the machinations of secret enemies. This Dillon had also planned that expresses should journey to a seaport at the south, with the intelligence that your vessels were in these seas, in order that ships might be dispatched to intercept your retreat.” The Pilot lost his affected indifference as she proceeded; and before she ceased speaking, his eye was endeavoring to anticipate her words, by reading her countenance through the dusky medium of the starlight. “How know you this, Alice?” he asked quickly--“and what vessel did he name?” “Chance made me an unseen listener to their plan, and--I know not but I forget my duty to my prince! but, John, 'tis asking too much of a weak woman, to require that she shall see the man whom she once viewed with eyes of favor sacrificed, when a word of caution, given in season, might enable him to avoid the danger!” “Once viewed with an eye of favor! Is it then so?” said the Pilot, speaking in a vacant manner. “But, Alice, heard ye the force of the ships, or their names? Give me their names, and the first lord of your British admiralty shall not give so true an account of their force as I will furnish from this list of my own.” “Their names were certainly mentioned,” said Alice, with tender melancholy; “but the name of one far nearer to me was ringing in my ears, and has driven them from my mind.” “You are the same good Alice I once knew! And my name was mentioned? What said they of the Pirate? Had his arm stricken a blow that made them tremble in their abbey? Did they call him coward, girl?” “It was mentioned in terms that pained my heart as I listened; for it is never too easy a task to forget the lapse of years, nor are the feelings of youth to be easily eradicated.” “Ay, there is luxury in knowing that, with all their affected abuse, the slaves dread me in their secret holds!” exclaimed the Pilot, pacing in front of his listener with quick steps. “This it is to be marked, among men, above all others in your calling! I hope yet to see the day when the third George shall start at the sound of that name, even within the walls of his palace.”