"Nay, but did you not love me then?" he said, tenderly taking her hand and drawing her unresistingly to his heart.

"Oh, sustain me, my good angel!" she cried, burying her face in her hands; "my heart, my poor heart!"

"Kate, this world and I have parted, and we soon must part. I will therefore address you frankly. I love you even as I first loved you! You have for years been the spirit of my dreams, the sun of my waking thoughts. Tell me at this solemn hour--see, the dawn of the last morning I shall ever know on earth is streaking the east--speak, and let the thought of it bless my dying hour--do you love me still?"

"Oh, Robert, ask me not. I am betrothed--I--"

"Nay, I ask not for the confession of thy love for me; I look not upon you with human love; but with the feelings of a dying man, who longs for some cheering word to sweeten the draught of death. Tell me, sweet Kate, that you love me still!"

She could not resist the solemn earnestness of his appeal:

"Yes, yes!" she cried, bending her head upon his shoulder and bursting into tears.

He gazed on her fair cheek fondly, but his penitent lip sought not to profane it. His thoughts too plainly were subdued by contemplation of his approaching fate. He felt as he spoke. But a ray of grateful pleasure at her words illumined his haggard features, and, speaking softly to her, he said,

"I know not how to thank you for this, dearest lady!"

"Oh, Lester, must you die?" she cried, without heeding his words. "Your immortal spirit! Oh, I tremble for its fate!"

"I have thought much of it of late! It seems now, as I look back, as if the last five years of my life had been pa.s.sed under a spell. I am penitent, it is true, but feel there is no hope for me!"

"There is, there is!"

"I know the boundless arms of your holy faith will reach even to the gates of perdition; but I am beyond their reach. Yet I die composedly, since you have told me you love me still!"

"Talk not so, Robert; I will pray with you!" she said, earnestly.

And he knelt beside her as, with impa.s.sioned fervour, she addressed to the Virgin a simple and eloquent prayer for the soul of him who was so soon to become a habitant of the world of spirits. Both remained silent a few moments after she had ceased. Their souls seemed to have blended in one by flowing upward together on the holy tide of prayer. Suddenly, prompted by the gentle feelings that filled his heart, he turned to her and said,

"Dearest Kate, one thing I would ask of you; 'tis bold, but there is no earthly feeling or human emotion united with it. Consent to unite yourself to me here--not by words of marriage--not as an earthly bride--but that our souls may be one hereafter!"

"Robert, tempt me not; the current of my young love has rushed back upon me in an irresistible flood; therefore, if you love me, tempt me not!"

"Nay, Kate, dearest, 'tis but a word, and the last request you can have the power to grant me. Let me take your hand; 'twill be a spiritual union only."

He gently took her pa.s.sive hand in his as he spoke, and said in a voice of love, that vibrated along every chord of her heart,

"Will you be mine?"

"Yes, yes!" she replied, with great agitation.

He kissed her cheek as she answered, and at the same instant a deep voice said,

"_I p.r.o.nounce you man and wife! Those whom G.o.d hath joined together let no man put asunder!_"

The maiden shrieked and would have fallen to the floor but for the support of _her husband's_ arm, who, turning in the utmost surprise, beheld Father Nanfan standing without and looking upon them through the grated window of the cell.

CONCLUSION.

The morning sun shone brightly into the court-chamber in the White Hall where the Earl of Bellamont was wont to administer justice. It communicated with his library, and occupied the whole of the western wing. Its windows opened to the ground on two sides, while on the other two doors communicated both with the library and chapel. Surrounded by the chief citizens and dignitaries of the law sat the governor at a table, on which lay the papers relating to the piracies of Kyd. Before him stood the pirate chief in chains, silent, composed, and dignified, if not somewhat haughty in his bearing before his foes. He was there to receive his sentence. The lawn was crowded with curious spectators, and the windows filled with those most anxious to be close to the scene. In the back part of the room, whither she had silently stolen through the window, stood Elpsy, gazing on the proceedings with folded arms and lowering brows. Through the half open door that led to the chapel was a tall dark lady of majestic person, dressed in widow's weeds, her countenance marked with the deep lines of long-continued sorrow. It was "the Dark Lady of the Rock." Not far removed from her, within the hall and near where the earl was seated, stood Fitzroy, and by his side Edwin his secretary. At a small desk covered with black velvet, on the right of the earl, sat the priest Nanfan.

At length everything was prepared, and the prisoner was commanded to stand forth and receive his sentence. The n.o.ble judge addressed him briefly, recapitulating the numerous crimes that had made his name a by-word of terror throughout the world, and which had been proved upon him, and then proceeded to execute the death-warrant. By accident, there was no pen within his reach. The bonnet of the bucanier lay on the desk before him, and caught his eye as he turned for one.

"Ha," said he, "I will pluck one from this sable feather, which has been the terrible pennon under which his dark crimes have been perpetrated.

'Tis a fit instrument to seal his doom."

He drew from the bonnet a falcon's plume, and with a few rapid strokes of the knife prepared it for use. He was about to sign the paper, when a solemnly prophetic voice, whence no one could tell, said,

"_Beware of the black plume!_"

The earl arrested his hand, and every eye turned in the supposed direction of the voice; but, discovering no one, they turned again towards the earl. A second time he bent his head to sign the paper; but, ere he had touched the sheet, a wild scream curdled the blood in every man's veins, and Kate Bellamont rushed from the library into the hall, and cast herself upon the shoulder of the prisoner.

"Father, hold!" she cried, lifting her face and fixing her wild eyes upon him with a terrible gaze, "hold! you shall not murder him! He is my husband!"

"_Thy_ husband!" repeated Fitzroy, springing forward to release her from the affectionate embrace of Kyd.

"_Her_ husband, earl!" said the priest, rising and speaking with triumphant malice.

"Woman," said Fitzroy, with forced calmness, "art thou his wife?"

"Who speaks?" she cried, wildly, putting her hair back from her face and staring at him as if she recognised him not. "Ha, Fitzroy, is it thou?

Oh, I thought I loved thee! Yet I would have been thy bride if Heaven had not made me his! Yes, Robert, I am thine--thine!" she added, with wild pa.s.sion.

"My child wedded to a pirate--"

"Who calls him a pirate? He is Lester's earl!" cried the poor maiden.

"Lester's earl!" cried the countess, rushing forward. "'Tis my son, then--my son!"

"Nay--back. Listen, all of ye!" said the sorceress, striding into the midst. "I can tell ye a mystery and solve it, my lord! This pirate was the Earl of Lester; but, being convinced that he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and the son of a fisherman, fled from home and became what you see him!"

"This young Robert of Lester?" exclaimed the earl; "now do I recognise his features!"

"Interrupt me not!" she said, harshly. "The true Lord of Lester was a lad called Mark Meredith, and there he stands, a third time risen from the sea to thwart my schemes! Countess of Lester, in him behold your son!"

The lady looked a moment and scanned his features with increasing amazement.

"_My lord--himself!_ The mother's heart owns her son!"

And Fitzroy, to his surprise, found himself clasped for the first time in a mother's embrace.

In a few brief words the sorceress explained everything that has already been unfolded in the preceding pages in reference to the characters, save her own relation to two that were present.