"None to your love?"

"None!"

"Nothing's proved!" he cried, with animation; "I bear the king's commission against piracy."

"The more guilty then, that, under cover of it, you commit piracies.

This king's commission! Do not all men know 'twas given thee because you knew the haunts of a dangerous horde of pirates in the Indian seas, having been one of them, though now their foe and rival; and, by giving thee employment, to keep thee out of mischief?"

"'Tis false!"

"I've heard enough. More I could tell thee of recent occurrence."

"Ha, dost thou know--has the boy told--"

"Nothing. I know enough. Your guilt is written out upon the sky! He that runs may read it! Go on; slay and pillage. You have a love of human blood, and, like the wolf, who, once tasting it, will touch no other, glut thyself till satiate."

"Kate!"

"Away, sir! Speak not, come not near me! Thy touch, thy very glance is pollution."

She turned to fly towards the Hall as she spoke, but, darting forward, he caught her by the arm.

"By the cross! if you will act the queen, then will I play the king. I have been an angler, and have learned from it a lesson in love. My letter to thee was but a hook cunningly baited with a gilded fly I knew you would snap at! I have given thee line enough, and now will draw thee in captive!"

He threw his arm about her as he spoke, and was bearing her around the bastion of the fort towards his boat, which, by making a circuit from his vessel round the bay and approaching the town on the North River side, he had succeeded in running into a little cove west of the Rondeel unperceived. The surprise of the maiden was at first so great as to deprive her of the power of speech. But, as she was borne round the fort by his strong arm, she said, in a tone of perfect self-command,

"Unhand me, Lester! Release me. I forgive you."

"You are _mine_, proud beauty!" he replied, through his clinched teeth.

"I have been the plaything of thy pride full long."

"Unhand me, sir."

"Pardon me if I am somewhat rough," he said, ironically; "on shipboard I will atone for it."

"Heaven, then, has given me this in my hour of need," she cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing a pistol from his belt, and by a sudden effort disengaging herself and springing away from him several feet. As she spoke she levelled it against his person.

"Ha, ha! my pretty one, you do the heroine excellently. Give me that pretty toy, sweet Kate," he said, advancing towards her; "it becomes not a lady's fingers."

"Back, sir," she replied with resolution, presenting it full at his breast.

"Nay, nay, then."

He sprung upon her at the same instant to secure the weapon, when she cried,

"G.o.d forgive me, then!" and fired.

Instantly he released her wrist, which he had seized, with a cry of pain mingled with an exclamation of rage and disappointment.

The report of the pistol was answered by the roll of a drum on the Rondeel, and was followed by the noise of alarm and confusion in the town. Kate fled like a deer towards the Hall, while Kyd, wrapping his cloak about his left arm, which was bleeding freely, glided beneath the locust-trees that surrounded the Bowling Green, and gained his boat.

"Shall we pull back by the way we came?" asked the c.o.xswain.

"No. Give me the helm."

The man obeyed his stern voice, and, after the boat had cleared the rocks, he steered her directly across the line of fire from the Rondeel towards his vessel.

Without hesitating, the men pulled steadily and in silence in the face of the fort, and, as the moon was now up, they could not remain long undiscovered. In a few seconds they were challenged from the battery.

There was no reply. A second time they were hailed, but still the boat kept on her course straight for the brig.

"Fire!" cried a voice. "'Tis 'the Kyd.'"

Instantly, one after another, the heavy guns opened upon them from the parapet, but the b.a.l.l.s went roaring through the air high above their heads. Still steadily and silently the boat kept on her course. A discharge of firearms followed with more effect. Three of the eight oarsmen were shot dead as they sat, and scarcely one escaped unhurt. The desperate helmsman sat stern and silent, and only with an impatient wave of his hand bid them row on. A second volley reached them, and but three oarsmen remained seated and labouring faintly at their oars. Kyd left the helm and caught the fourth oar as the dead man dropped it, and, cheering them on, soon reached his brig, amid a third volley that rattled around him like hail.

"Ship your oars," he cried, as they came alongside, rising to his feet.

Not a man moved.

"Spring to the bows and fend off!" he shouted.

There was no reply; the men sat upright, and swayed their bodies to and fro, and still pulled at their sweeps!

The boat, at the same instant, came against the brig's counter with a shock, and the three men were thrown from their seats backward to the bottom of the boat. They were dead! He had been pulling an oar the last few seconds with corpses. He shuddered and sprung up the side.

Instantly the brig got under weigh, and, sailing up East River to h.e.l.l Gate, pa.s.sed through the dangerous pa.s.s, and came to, not far from the Witch's Isle. A boat was lowered, and Kyd descended into it and landed there. As he entered the hut the witch was seated on the ground over a fire, rocking her body to and fro, and chanting a wild song.

"Welcome, Robert Kyd," she said, without turning round. "Umph! I smell blood!" she cried the instant after. "Thou hast been at thy old trade.

Hast thou had revenge?"

"I have. His vessel is mine. Him I have slain."

"Did I not promise thee this?" she said, rising and speaking with triumph. "Now thou art come to do my will and to fulfil thy oath."

"I have seen her within the hour," he said, with settled hate.

"And she has scorned thee?"

"Yes. I tried love at first, but it would not do, and--"

"You then tried force?"

"I did," he said, ferociously.

"And she is now in thy state-cabin?"

"No. I bore her part way to my boat, when she drew a pistol from my belt and shot me here."

"And she--"