Page:Demon ship, or, The pirate of the Mediterranean.pdf/21

Day after day passed away, and still we were the miserable, half-starved, half-suffocated, though unknown prisoners of this Demon gang. Girod at this period rarely dared to visit us. He came only when the business of the ship actually sent him. The cabin above was occupied at night by the captain and some of his most depraved associates, so that small alleviation of our fears was afforded us either by day or by night. At length, I began to fear that Margaret would sink under the confined air, and the constant excitement. It was agony indeed to feel her convulsed frame, and hear her faintly-drawn and dying breath, and know that I could not carry her into the reviving breezes of heaven, nor afford a single alleviation of her suffering, without at onec snapping that thread of life which was now wearing away by a slow and lingering death. At length, her respiration began to partake of the loud and irrepressible character which is so often the precursor of dissolution. She deemed her hour drawing on, yet feebly essayed, for my sake, to stifle those last faint moans of expiring nature which might betray our eoncealment. I supported her head, poured a faltering prayer into her dying ear, wiped the death-dews from her face, and essayed to whisper expressions of deep and unutterable affection. At this moment, Girod desceended to the hold. He put his finger on his lips significantly, and then whispered in French—'Courage—Rescue! There is a sail on our weather bow. She is yet in the offing. Our captain marks her not; but I have watched her some time with a glass, and she appears to be a British sloop of war.' I grasped Margaret's hand. She faintly returned the pressure, but gently murmured, 'Too late.' Ere the lapse of a moment, it was evident that our possible deliverer was discovered by the Demon crew, for we could hear by the bustle of feet and voiees that the ship was being put about; and the ferocious and determined voice of the bueeaneer chief was heard, giving prompt and fierce orders to urge on the Demon. Girod promised to bring us more news, and quitted us. The rush of air into the hold seemed to have revived Margaret, and my hopes began to rise. Yet it was too soon evident that the motion of the vessel was increased, and that the crew were straining every nerve to avoid our hoped-for deliverer. After a while, however, the stormy wind abated; the ship became steadier, and certainly made less way in the waves. A voice over our head said distinctly in French—'The sea is gone down, and the sloop makes signal to us to lay to.' A quarter of an hour elapsed, and the voice again said, 'The sloop ehaces us!' Oh! what inexpressibly anxious moments were those. We could discover from the varying cries on deck