"Ah!--thank you, Ivan, thank you--that is well!" she said, and turning to me, she added, hurriedly and energetically, "If you would be free, and choose, it may be, between liberty or death, you have not another instant to lose! Ivan tells me that the crew of an English man-of-war boat is at this moment filling casks with water at the well of St. Basil on the beach yonder. Thrice has that ship been there for the same purpose; and I was watching for her when you came to me on the terrace, as I heard of her being off Alupka this morning." "Your thoughts, then, were of me?" said I, tenderly. "For you, rather; but away, and God be with you, sir!" I lifted the window softly, and across the moonlit park that stretched away towards the seashore she pointed to where four tall cypresses rose like dark giants against the clear and starry sky, and where, at the distance of a mile or little more, the white marble dome of the well could be distinctly seen between them, its polished surface shining like a star above a sombre belt of shrubbery. "There is the sound of hoofs! The Cossacks, your escort, are coming Away, sir; you cannot miss the well, though you may the boat!" said Valerie, with her hands clasped and her dark eyes dilated; and as she spoke the clank of galloping horses coming up the valley (and, as I fancied, the cracking of the whips carried by the Cossacks at their bridles) could be heard distinctly in the clear frosty air. "If I had but my sword and pistols!" said I, with my teeth clenched. "You do not require them. Farewell! "Adieu, Valerie--adieu!" I passionately kissed her lips and her cheek, too, ere she could prevent me, waved my hand to old Yourivitch, vaulted over the window, dropped from the balustrade of the terrace into the park, and at the risk of being seen by some of the household crossed it with all the speed I could exert in the direction that led to where I knew that the well--a structure erected by Prince Woronzow--stood on a lonely part of the shore. More than once did I look back at the lofty façade of the beautiful château, with its four towers and onion-shaped domes of shining copper, and all its stately windows that glittered in the light of a cloudless moon; and just as I drew near the belt of shrubbery, I could see the dark figures of mounted men encircling the terrace! A fugitive, in danger of losing honour and life together! Was this the end of my daydreams in Yalta? Once more I turned, and hastened to where the four cypress-trees towered skyward. "Ahoy! who comes there?" cried a somewhat gruff voice, in English, accompanied by the sound of a slap on the butt of a musket; and then the squat sturdy figure of a seaman, posted as sentinel, appeared among the bushes, with an infantry pouch, belts, and bayonet worn above his short pea-jacket. "A friend!" I replied, mechanically, yet not without a glow of sincere pleasure.