The Lily and the Cross

on board the Parson being anything the wiser. This Claude felt, and as he thought of the possibility of this, he began to see that Zac's anxiety was very well founded, and that if the Parson should be captured it would be no easy task to deliver her from the grasp of the captor. Still there came no further sounds, and Claude, after listening for a long time without hearing anything, began, at length, to conclude that Zac had been deceived.

"Don't you think," he asked, "that it may, after all, have been the rustle of the sails, or the creaking of the spars?"

Zac shook his head.

"No," said he; "I've heerd it twice; an' I know very well all the sounds that sails an' spars can make; an' I don't see as how I can be mistook. O, no; it was human voice, an' nothin' else in natur'. I wouldn't mind it a mite if I could do anythin'. But to set here an' jest git caught, like a rat in a trap, is what I call too--almighty--bad!"

At this very instant, and while Zac was yet speaking, there came t