"Save and help us!" said Yeo: "and what was he like unto?" She made various signs to intimate that he had a monkey's face, and a grey beard like Yeo's. So far so good: but now came a series of manipulations about her pretty little neck, which set all their fancies at fault.

66

I know," said Cary, at last, bursting into a great laugh. "Sir Urian had a ruff on, as I live! Trunk-hose too, my fair dame? Stop-I'll make sure. Was his neck like the Señor

Commandant's, the Spaniard ?"

Ayacanora clapped her hands at finding herself understood, and the questioning went on.

"The Devil' appeared like a monkey, with a grey beard, in a ruff;-humph!"

"Ay!" said she in good enough Spanish, "Mono de Panama; viejo diablo de Panama."

Yeo threw up his hands with a shriek—

"Oh Lord of all mercies! Those were the last words of Mr. John Oxenham ! Ay-and the Devil is surely none other than the devil Don Francisco Xararte ! Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! my sweet young lady! my pretty little maid! and don't you know me? Don't you know Salvation Yeo, that carried you over the mountains, and used to climb for the monkey-cups for you, my dear young lady? And William Penberthy too, that used to get you flowers; and your poor dear father, that was just like Mr. Cary there, only he had a black beard, and black curls, and swore terribly in his speech, like a Spaniard, my dear young lady?"

And the honest fellow, falling on his knees, covered Ayacanora's hands with kisses; while all the crew, fancying him gone suddenly mad, crowded aft.

66

Steady, men, and don't vex him!" said Amyas. "He thinks that he has found his little maid at last."

"And so do I, Amyas, as I live," said Cary.

Steady, steady, my masters all! If this turn out a wrong scent after all, his wits will crack. Mr. Yeo, can't you think of any other token ?"

Yeo stamped impatiently. "What need then? It's her, I tell ye, and that's enough! What a beauty she's grown! Oh dear! where were my eyes all this time, to behold her, and not to see her! 'Tis her very mortal self, it is! And don't you mind me, my dear, now? Don't you mind Salvation Yeo, that taught you to sing 'Heave my mariners all, O!' a-sitting on a log by the boat upon the sand, and there was a sight of red lilies

grew on it in the moss, dear, now, wasn't there? and we made posies of them to put in your hair, now?"-And the poor old man ran on in a supplicating, suggestive tone, as if he could persuade the girl into becoming the person whom he sought.

Ayacanora had watched him, first angry, then amused, then attentive, and at last with the most intense earnestness. Suddenly she grew crimson, and snatching her hands from the old man's, hid her face in them, and stood.

"Do you remember anything of all this, my child?" asked Amyas gently.

She lifted up her eyes suddenly to his, with a look of imploring agony, as if beseeching him to spare her. The death of a whole old life, the birth of a whole new life, was struggling in that beautiful face, choking in that magnificent throat, as she threw back her small head, and drew in her breath, and dashed her locks back from her temples, as if seeking for fresh air. She shuddered, reeled, then fell weeping on the bosom, not of Salvation Yeo, but of Amyas Leigh.

He stood still a minute or two, bearing that fair burden, ere he could recollect himself.

Then,-

“Ayacanora, you are not yet mistress of yourself, my child. You were better to go down, and see after poor Lucy, and we will talk about it all to-morrow."

She gathered herself up instantly, and with eyes fixed on the deck slid through the group, and disappeared below.

"Ah!" said Yeo, with a tone of exquisite sadness; "the young to the young! Over land and sea, in the forests and in the galleys, in battle and prison, I have sought her! And

now!

66

"My good friend," said Amyas, "neither are you master of yourself yet. When she comes round again, whom will she love and thank but you?"

"You, sir! She owes all to you; and so do I. Let me go below, sir. My old wits are shaky. Bless you, sir, and thank you for ever and ever!"

And Yeo grasped Amyas's hand, and went down to his cabin, from which he did not reappear for many hours.

From that day Ayacanora was a new creature. The thought that she was an Englishwoman; that she, the wild Indian, was really one of the great white people whom she had learned to worship, carried in it some regenerating change: she regained all her former stateliness, and with it a self-restraint, a temperance, a softness which she had never shown before. Her dislike

to Cary and Jack vanished. Modest and distant as ever, she now took delight in learning from them about England and English people; and her knowledge of our customs gained much from the somewhat fantastic behaviour which Amyas thought good, for reasons of his own, to assume toward her. He assigned her a handsome cabin to herself, always addressed her as Madam, and told Cary, Brimblecombe, and the whole crew that as she was a lady and a Christian, he expected them to behave to her as such. So there was as much bowing and scraping on the poop as if it had been a prince's court: and Ayacanora, though sorely puzzled and chagrined at Amyas's new solemnity, contrived to imitate it pretty well (taking for granted that it was the right thing); and having tolerable masters in the art of manners (for both Amyas and Cary were thoroughly well-bred men), profited much in all things, except in intimacy with Amyas, who had, cunning fellow, hit on this parade of good manners, as a fresh means of increasing the distance between him and her. The crew, of course, though they were a little vexed at losing their pet, consoled themselves with the thought that she was a "real born lady," and Mr. Oxenham's daughter, too; and there was not a man on board who did not prick up his ears for a message if she approached him, or one who would not have, I verily believe, jumped overboard to do her a pleasure.

Only Yeo kept sorrowfully apart. He never looked at her, spoke to her, met her even, if he could. His dream had vanHe had found her! and after all, she did not care for him? Why should she?

ished.

But it was hard to have hunted a bubble for years, and have it break in his hand at last. "Set not your affections on things on the earth," murmured Yeo to himself, as he pored over his Bible, in the vain hope of forgetting his little maid.

But why did Amyas wish to increase the distance between himself and Ayacanora? Many reasons might be given: I deny none of them. But the main one, fantastic as it may seem, was simply, that while she had discovered herself to be an Englishwoman, he had discovered her to be a Spaniard. If her father were seven times John Oxenham (and even that the perverse fellow was inclined to doubt), her mother was a Spaniard ---Pah! one of the accursed race; kinswoman,-perhaps, to his brother's murderers! His jaundiced eyes could see nothing but the Spanish element in her; or, indeed, in anything else. As Cary said to him once, using a cant phrase of Sidney's, which

he had picked up from Frank, all heaven and earth were 66 spaniolated" to him. He seemed to recollect nothing but that Heaven had "made Spaniards to be killed, and him to kill them." If he had not been the most sensible of John Bulls, he would certainly have forestalled the monomania of that young Frenchman of rank, who, some eighty years after him, so maddened his brain by reading of the Spanish cruelties, that he threw up all his prospects and turned captain of Filibusters in the West Indies, for the express purpose of ridding them of their tyrants; and when a Spanish ship was taken, used to relinquish the whole booty to his crew, and reserve for himself only the pleasure of witnessing his victims' dying agonies.

But what had become of that bird-like song of Ayacanora's which had astonished them on the banks of the Meta, and cheered them many a time in their anxious voyage down the Magdalena? From the moment that she found out her English parentage, it stopped. She refused utterly to sing anything but the songs and psalms which she picked up from the English. Whether it was that she despised it as a relic of her barbarism, or whether it was too maddening for one whose heart grew heavier and humbler day by day, the nightingale notes were heard no more.

So homeward they ran, before a favouring south-west breeze: but long ere they were within sight of land, Lucy Passmore was gone to her rest beneath the Atlantic waves.

IT is the evening of the 15th of February 1587, and Mrs. Leigh (for we must return now to old scenes and old faces) is pacing slowly up and down the terrace-walk at Burrough, looking out over the winding river, and the hazy sand-hills, and the wide

western sea, as she has done every evening, be it fair weather or foul, for three weary years. Three years and more are past and gone, and yet no news of Frank and Amyas, and the gallant ship and all the gallant souls therein; and loving eyes in Bideford and Appledore, Clovelly and Ilfracombe, have grown hollow with watching and with weeping for those who have sailed away into the West, as John Oxenham sailed before them, and have vanished like a dream, as he did, into the infinite unknown. Three weary years, and yet no word. Once there was a flush of hope, and good Sir Richard (without Mrs. Leigh's knowledge) had sent a horseman posting across to Plymouth, when the news arrived that Drake, Frobisher, and Carlisle had returned with their squadron from the Spanish Main. Alas! he brought back great news, glorious news; news of the sacking of Carthagena, San Domingo, Saint Augustine; of the relief of Raleigh's Virginian Colony but no news of the Rose, and of those who had sailed in her. And Mrs. Leigh bowed her head, and worshipped, and said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!".

Her hair was now grown grey; her cheeks were wan; her step was feeble. She seldom went from home, save to the church, and to the neighbouring cottages. She never mentioned her sons' names; never allowed a word to pass her lips, which might betoken that she thought of them; but every day, when the tide was high, and red flag on the sandhills showed that there was water over the bar, she paced the terrace-walk, and devoured with greedy eyes the sea beyond, in search of the sail which never came. The stately ships went in and out as of yore; and white sails hung off the bar for many an hour, day after day, month after month, year after year: but an instinct within told her that none of them were the sails she sought. She knew that ship, every line of her, the cut of every cloth; she could have picked it out miles away, among a whole fleet, but it never came, and Mrs. Leigh bowed her head and worshipped, and went to and fro among the poor, who looked on her as an awful being, and one whom God had brought very near to Himself, in that mysterious heaven of sorrow which they too knew full well. And lone women and bed-ridden men looked in her steadfast eyes, and loved them, and drank in strength from them; for they knew (though she never spoke of her own grief) that she had gone down into the fiercest depths of the fiery furnace, and was walking there unhurt by the side of One whose form was as of the Son of God. And all the while she