"Are you the Malignant of whom he speaks?" inquired the stern colonel.

"He is the unhappy father of that murdered girl," interposed Constantia.

"Whoever refuses to seize him deserves a traitor's death," reiterated

Sir Willmott.

The troopers stood with their hands on their swords, awaiting their

officer's commands.

The Buccaneer turned fiercely round, still pressing his child to his

bosom with one arm, and holding a pistol within the other hand.

"I am," he said in a bold and fearless, but not an arrogant tone, "I am

he whom that accursed villain names. But ye had better not rouse a

desperate man. Dare not to touch me; at your peril stay my course.

Colonel Jones, tell the Protector of England, that Hugh Dalton craves no

pardon now. This, this was my hope--my pride; for her I would have been

honest, and well thought of! Behold! she stiffens on my arm. She is

nothing now but clay! Yet, by the God that made her! no churlish earth

shall sully this fair form. She was as pure as the blue sea that cradled

her first months of infancy; and, mark ye, when the rays of the young

sun rest upon the ocean, at the morning-watch, by my own ship's side, in

the bosom of the calm waters, shall she find a grave. I will no more

trouble England--no more--no more! Gold may come dancing on the waves,

even to my vessel's prow, I will not touch it. Cromwell may take me if

he will, but not till I perform for my good and gentle child the only

rite that ever she demanded from me."

Even as the tiger-mother passes through an Indian crowd, bearing the

cherished offspring of her fierce but affectionate nature, which some

stray arrow has destroyed--terrible in her anguish and awful in her

despair--her foes appalled at her sufferings and the bravery of her

spirit, though still panting for her destruction--their arrows are on

the string--yet the untaught, but secret and powerful respect for the

great source of our good as well as of our evil passions--Nature--works

within them, and she passes on, unmolested, to her lair:--even so did

Dalton pass along, carrying his daughter, as she were a sleeping infant,

through the armed warriors, who made way, as if unconscious of what they

did;--some, who were themselves fathers, pressed their mailed fingers on

their eyes, while others touched their helmets, and raised them a little

from their brows.

"Colonel Jones," exclaimed the enraged Burrell, "you will have to answer

for this to a high power. The Protector would give its weight in gold

for the head of that man; and the weight of that again for a knowledge

of his haunts."




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