ceived her, and she sustained no mjury. The Pirates were not all equally pleased with the exploit of the Pole and the dwarf. Their leader and Gilpin, together with the others who had received the Louis-d'ors from the lord of Rougemont, thought it unwise to provoke him by such an act as the carrying off of his daughter; but the rest of the crew, who had only had dollars from him, rejoiced in the opportunity thus afforded of wringing from him sums more worth the having than those he had given them. The last mentioned were the majority, and they decided the question. The insensible girl was lifted again upon the horse, and upheld by Brien, the leader, who had mounted in the place of the dwarf to support her.

The narrow and unequal road along which the band continued their running pace, was extremely solitary; for three miles they met no person, and saw in the thin snow which veiled the icy ground no human track, excepting only such as they knew had been made by themselves when they came to Rougemont in the morning of that day. As they entered the forest the way grew more dreary and even savage in its character; it became steeper and rougher; whole trees not unfrequently lay across its contracted breadth. The extreme height of the gloomy hills on each side, with their hosts of black pines, shut out the daylight. Deep and awful was the silence that prevailed, and it could scarcely be said to be disturbed by the occasional cry of some melancholy-voiced and lonely bird, who, hardier than most of its summer companions, had remained braving the penetrating cold of the winter season in these primeval shades. This was a spot in which a deed of

crime might have remained hidden until the day of doom. It seemed as if heaven itself could hardly glance upon what might be done here. Even the Pirates felt a chill on their hearts as they proceeded more slowly in consequence of the hilly character of the ground; and many of them took their cutlasses in their hands, at the same time pressing nearer to each other, and sending many an uneasy glance into the overhanging thickets.

In such a place Jane revived-revived to feel herself in a situation of unparalleled horror. In attempting to raise herself from her reclining position on the horse, she found that the arms of Brien were wound around her. In vain she struggled desperately to free herself from their abhorred circle, he held her with too firm a grasp. One thrilling shriek then succeeded to another from her heaving breast, until Brien, with a curse, pressed his hand on her mouth, and swore to kill her if she was not quiet.

Here a man suddenly darted from a turning in front of the party and faced the horseman and his stolen charge. He was in attire which belonged to no country in particular, and his features were those of a gipsy;. he carried in his hand a gun, which he lifted in a menacing manner, while another individual of corresponding appearance followed him-and then another.

The three placed themselves side by side in the middle of the road, and opposed the advance of the Pirates, while they uttered some exclamations in an unintelligible language, the purport of which was easily understood as expressing a determination to know the meaning of the screams they had heard. Jane stretched out her arms toward them, and franticly implored their assis

tance. They comprehended the movement, though not her words; the language of nature spoke clearly enough to them too in her piercing accents, and in her distracted and beseeching countenance.

One of them immediately gave a shrill whistle, and at least half a dozen powerful men, all in the same style of garb, and all of exceedingly dark and impressive countenances, issued from the same turning as the others.

The Pirates began to display their weapons, and Brien, singling out one of the nearest of the gipsies, discharged a pistol at him, which missed, owing to the sudden rearing of the horse. Another whistle brought to the assistance of the gipsies an additional number of their companions, and one and all immediately fired on the crew of the privateers with murderous effect. The Pirates returned the deadly salute with their pistols, and then rushed upon their assailants, who met them with ferocity and strength equal to their own. The wild shouts of the two mingling bands of lawless wanderers sounded strangely in that still place. The grey fox, startled by the unusual din from his leafy hiding place, flew with the speed of the wind under the shelter of the trees down the forest pass to some covert more remote from man. The little animal which had never yet attained to a name in the annals of zoology, and which had been quietly sleeping between the ever-green branches of a pine, comfortably sheltered from the keen air by broad leaves, and by its fine coat of glossy fur, now, frightened by the smoke which wreathed about its bed, pricked up its ears, listened tremblingly to the reports of the fire-arms, and with terror in its beautiful

eyes ran up to the topmost branch above its head, there. listened again, then leaped to the next tree, flew down the stem, and darted away, like the fox, to seek another place of rest, where the disturber, and the destroyernian-could never come.

Brien had thrown himself from the horse, and was fighting in front of his men.

Jane clung to her saddle until the animal received a shot in its breast, which brought it on its knees; she then cowered down on the ground behind it, expecting death every moment from the bullets that whizzed about her head. In this dire extremity she endeavoured to put up a prayer to God to receive her soul; but her mind was all confusion and horror, and the words departed from her before they had been articulated.

Now she learned how dear to her Mr. Lee was. The thought of what the agony of her father and brother would be when they should discover her death, wrung her heart indeed, but infinitely keener were her pangs when the distress of Arthur rose before her. Passionate tears burst from her eyes, and she was conscious of an utter want of resignation to that dread event which seemed inevitable.

The voices of females now rose strangely above the tumult, and in a second after the fight ceased. The wind caught up the smoke, and Jane, who was eager to catch at the faintest probability of prolonging her life, gazed with wild hope on a number of gipsy women, who had daringly thrown themselves between the feroeous combatants.

"What is all this about?" cried a majestic creature who seemed to possess an authority over the rest, and

whose voice, though hardly feminine enough to please a fastidious critic in such matters, yet wanted not, even in its fullest tones, a certain richness and melody as delightful as it was uncommon. A warm and showy shawl with red and yellow stripes was tied over her head, and her cloak, which was of an eastern material and shape, was worn in such a manner as to enhance the stateliness of her remarkable mien. She had seized the arm of the king of the gipsies, a little, slender man, about sixty years of age, whose wife she was, as it was in the act of raising a dagger in order to strike the weapon into the breast of a prostrate Pirate; and while he glared on her with bloodthirsty looks, like a wolf hindered from its prey, she returned his glance with one equally fierce and determined.

"Stop your slaughtering hand!" she sternly exclaimed in English.

"Nina," said her husband, "if you interfere I will stab you!"

"Frighten your children-you cannot me!" she returned, with a mixture of boldness and contempt, still tightly holding his wrist.

"Curses on you!" cried the mendicant monarch, trying in vain to throw her from him, while he knelt on the privateer's body.

"I am as strong as yourself," calmly retorted his consort, maintaining her powerful grasp. "Let fall the dagger!"

"There then!" cried the king, dropping the weapon; instantly she let go his arm and bent to pick it up, but her husband was too quick for her; he seized it again, and in the madness of the moment plunged it into her