reach he pulled away, hoping still some chasm might present itself to his sight behind them, but dust only followed their fall, and the wall beneath appeared perfectly firm in every part. The leader bad, on the preceding night, said that it would be his own fault if his imprisonment was of long duration; thus all he had now to do was to await in patience the proposed terms for his ran som. He had not been risen more than an hour when one of the men appeared, and brought him his breakfast; with the evening his provisions were again renewed, and his oil and fuel replenished; but still no one but an inferior of the freebooter's party had been into his apartment, and he had heard nothing of the expected terms of ransom. His night was not at all more easy than the former one had been, indeed rather less so, as he began to entertain suspicions that he was meant to be detained a prisoner prisoner for life, or perhaps to be delivered up to a death of torture. Late in the evening of the following day, the leader appeared. "I am glad to see you," said De Mowbray; "I feared that you had forgotten me: I have been expecting, ere this, to have heard from you. What are the terms of ransom which you men tioned to me?" "I have purposely delayed visiting you," replied the leader, lest, in the first heat of your disappointment at not being yourself the conqueror, which you know Allanrod to be, you should have spurned at terms which, on cool reflection, will no doubt appear to you as reas sonable." "I am fully prepared to hear them," returned the Baron. "And foolish will you be," answered the leader, "if you do not as readily comply with them; and think yourself c 6 blessed blessed in the easy terms offered to your acceptance. Remember, proud Lord, he continued, "that it is in 'the power of Allanrod to confine you here for life; to keep the spot of your confinement a secret, by detaining your captured soldiers here like yourself; and if the spot be suspected, and a force marched out to attack it in your behalf, it will be in his power to cut off your liberty by death. Reflect well on the superiority he has over you, and then hear his conditions." Lord William's blood boiled within him. Conditions from the leader of a savage band of freebooters to the Lord of De Mowbray Castle, was a sound worse than poison to his ears; but policy commanded him to subdue his feelings, and with an effort which cost him many pangs, 1 he said, in a voice of composure Speak!" "Promise to give your daughter in marriage to Lord Rufus de Madgine court, court, and you are this instant free, and shall be conducted with honour to your own castle," replied the leader. If the mind of the Baron had before been agitated, what were his feelings at this demand! Astonishment closed his lips, and he stood fixed in silence and surprise his eyes encountering those of the leader" Give my child to Lord Rufus!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "As I say," returned the leader. "Never, by Heaven!" answered the Baron. "Deliberate upon it for the night,' returned the leader: "I will see you again to-morrow,"-and was departing. "No deliberation, no idea of my own liberty, shall ever induce me to sacrifice my daughter to the monster I know him to be," returned the Baron: "but stay-I conjure you, stay, and tell me how am I 'to understand this demand-as proceeding from whence, and from whom? Is it urged by Lord Rufus him |