mine, though I sought it not-vengeance on the powerful implement of the darker Influences by whom my schemes were so often thwarted, and even the life of my son endangered,-Yes, take it as a guarantee of the truth of my speech, that Cleveland-the pirate Cleveland-even now enters Kirkwall as a prisoner, and will soon expiate with his life the having shed blood which is of kin to Norna's."

"Who didst thou say was prisoner?" exclaimed Mertoun, with a voice of thunder-" Who, woman, didst thou say should expiate his crimes with his life?"

"Cleveland-the pirate Cleveland!" answered Norna; "and by me, whose counsel he scorned, he has been permitted to meet his fate."

"Thou most wretched of women!" said Mertoun, speaking from between his clenched teeth-" thou hast slain thy son as well as thy father!"

"My son !—what son?-what mean you?-Mordaunt is your son-your only son!" exclaimed Norna-" is he not?-tell me quickly-is he not?"

"Mordaunt is indeed my son," said Mertoun-“ the laws at least, gave him to me as such-But, O unhappy Ulla! Cleveland is your son as well as mine-blood of our blood, bone of our bone; and if you have given him to death, I will end my wretched life along with him!"

"Stay-hold-stop, Vaughan!" said Norna; "I am not yet overcome-prove but to me the truth of what you say, I would find help, if I should evoke hell!—But prove your words, else believe them I cannot.”

"Thou help? wretched, overweening woman!-in what have thy combinations and thy stratagems-the legerdemain of lunacy-the mere quackery of insanityin what have these involved thee?—and yet I will speak

to thee as reasonable-nay, I will admit thee as powerful—Hear, then, Ulla, the proofs which you demand, and find a remedy, if thou canst :

"When I fled from Orkney," he continued, after a pause" it is now five-and-twenty years since-I bore with me the unhappy offspring to whom you had given light. It was sent to me by one of your kinswomen, with an account of your illness, which was soon followed by a generally received belief of your death. It avails not to tell in what misery I left Europe. I found refuge in Hispaniola, wherein a fair young Spaniard undertook the task of comforter. I married her-she became mother of the youth called Mordaunt Mertoun."

"You married her!" said Norna, in a tone of deep reproach.

"I did, Ulla," answered Mertoun; "but you were avenged. She proved faithless,' and her infidelity left me in doubts whether the child she bore had a right to call me father—But I also was avenged."

"You murdered her!" said Norna, with a dreadful shriek.

"I did that," said Mertoun, without a more direct reply, "which made an instant flight from Hispaniola necessary. Your son I carried with me to Tortuga, where we had a small settlement. Mordaunt Vaughan, my son by marriage, about three or four years younger, was residing in Port-Royal, for the advantages of an English education. I resolved never to see him again, but I continued to support him. Our settlement was plundered by the Spaniards, when Clement was but fifteen-Want came to aid despair and a troubled conscience. I became a corsair, and involved Clement in the same desperate trade. His skill and bravery, though

then a mere boy, gained him a separate command; and after a lapse of two or three years, while we were on different cruises, my crew rose on me, and left me for dead on the beach of one of the Bermudas. I recovered, however, and my first inquiries, after a tedious illness, were after Clement. He, I heard, had been also marooned by a rebellious crew, and put ashore on a desert islet, to perish with want-I believed he had so perished."

"And what assures you that he did not?" said Ulla ; " For how comes this Cleveland to be identified with Vaughan?"

"To change a name is common with such adventurers," answered Mertoun, "and Clement had apparently found that of Vaughan had become too notorious-and this change, in his case, prevented me from hearing any tidings of him. It was then that remorse seized me, and that, detesting all nature, but especially the sex to which Louisa belonged, I resolved to do penance in the wild islands of Zetland for the rest of my life. To subject myself to fasts and to the scourge, was the advice of the holy Catholic priests, whom I consulted. But I devised a nobler penance-I determined to bring with me the unhappy boy Mordaunt, and to keep always before me the living memorial of my misery and my guilt. I have done so, and I have thought over both, till reason has often trembled on her throne. And now, to drive me to utter madness, my Clement-my own, my undoubted son, revives from the dead to be consigned to an infamous death by the machinations of his own mother!"

"Away, away!" said Norna, with a laugh, when she had heard the story to an end, "this is a legend framed by the old corsair, to interest my aid in favour of a guilty

comrade. How could I mistake Mordaunt for my son, their ages being so different?

"The dark complexion and manly stature may have done much," said Basil Mertoun; "strong imagination must have done the rest."

"But give me proofs-give me proofs that this Cleveland is my son, and, believe me, this sun shall sooner sink in the east, than they shall have power to harm a hair of his head."

"These papers, these journals," said Mertoun, offering the pocket-book.

"I cannot read them," she said, after an effort, "my brain is dizzy."

"Clement had also tokens which you may remember, but they must have become the booty of his captors. He had a silver box with a Runic inscription, with which, in far other days, you presented me—a golden chaplet.”

"A box!" said Norna, hastily; "Cleveland gave me one but a day since-I have never looked at it till now.

66

Eagerly she pulled it out-eagerly examined the legend around the lid, and as eagerly exclaimedThey may now indeed call me Reimkennar, for by this rhyme I know myself murderess of my son, as well as of my father!"

The conviction of the strong delusion under which she had laboured, was so overwhelming, that she sunk down at the foot of one of the pillars-Mertoun shouted for help, though in despair of receiving any; the sexton, however, entered, and, hopeless of all assistance from Norna, the distracted father rushed out, to learn, if sible, the fate of his son.

pos

CHAPTER XLII.

Go, some of you, cry a reprieve!

BEGGAR'S OPERA.

CAPTAIN WEATHERPORT had, before this time, reached Kirkwall in person, and was received with great joy and thankfulness by the Magistrates who had assembled in council for the purpose. The Provost, in particular, expressed himself delighted with the providential arrival of the Halcyon, at the very conjuncture when the Pirate could not escape her. The Captain looked a little surprised, and said—" For that, sir, you may thank the information you yourself supplied."

"That I supplied?" said the Provost, somewhat astonished.

"Yes, sir," answered Captain Weatherport, "I understand you to be George Torfe, Chief Magistrate of Kirkwall, who subscribes this letter."

The astonished Provost took the letter addressed to Captain Weatherport of the Halcyon, stating the arrival, force, &c., of the pirates' vessel; but adding that they had heard of the Halcyon being on the coast, and that they were on their guard and ready to baffle her, by going among the shoals, and through the islands, and holms, where the frigate could not easily follow; and at the worst, they were desperate enough to propose running the sloop ashore and blowing her up, by which much