That each succeeding look was lovelier than the "No presence affords me such delight, such

back her hand with a look of contempt and scorn, while Doria drew his sword. "Adro! in the name of the republic, I call on you to surrender!" he exclaimed.

that search should be made throughout the city for the dreaded Adro. At the same time he addressed a request to the commandatore of the galley's for the instant sailing of his squadron pursuit of the pirate's ship.

"Touch me not!" responded the pirate, draw-in ing two pistols from the breast of his sable doublet, while Durazzo and a number of patricians barred the path towards the door. "Touch me not!" repeated Adro, pointing the deadly weapons at those who advanced to seize him.

Terrified, they receded before him, save Doria and Durazzo. Pale and breathless, her eye labouring under an expression that denotes almost the loss of reason, Eleanora rushed forward between them, and clutching the arm of Doria, exclaimed wildly, "Let the pirate depart! I implore, I entreat you; force not a desperate man to acts of blood!”

The terror that had pervaded the minds of the guests was now removed; all thought of the pirate seemed by a tacit understanding to be banished, and the late scene began to be treated as a mere love adventure, which the Marchesa did not seek or attempt to deny—as more worthy of ridicule than of serious consideration. With renewed spirit, therefore, the dance recommenced, and not until the night's sweet bird had ceased her song "to the woodland's wild," and the star of Aurora trembled on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, did the last sound of revelry die away in the halls of Durazzo.

The mid-day sun of that day whose first Gazing upon her face, over which played the beams witnessed the departure of the revellers fiercest conflicting feelings, Doria could scarcely from the Palazzo Durazzo beheld a crowd of believe that it was that of her whom he so madly persons collected at the beautiful villa of the worshipped. At this moment Adro fired both Marchèsa Spinola at Sestri, inquiring with pistols; a crash of broken mirrors followed, and earnestness after her health, and all anxious in Eleanora fell senseless in the arms of Doria. addressing several questions regarding the pi Shrieks broke forth from the women; while the rate chief. Without the least hesitation she at pirate, turning his eyes for an instant on the once owned that the fearful Adro was none inanimate form of Eleanora with an expression other than Alberto d'Arpino, who, prior to her of the deepest anguish, and clearing with a marriage, had been a suitor for her hand, but single bound the "opposing host," rushed past that she had ever avoided his attentions, which Durazza ere he was prepared to avert it, and were most irksome and repugnant to her feelhad already gained the street, before the panic-ings. But, while from the LIPS of Eleanora is stricken guests durst give warning to the guards to secure him.

Terror and confusion now reigned in the but lately joyous scene of festivity. Some thought that the Marchesa Spinola had been murdered by Adro; others that she was only wounded. Durazzo, in his anxiety for his beautiful guest, forgot for the nonce his desire to secure the person of the pirate chief. But the latter had only fired over their heads to inspire dismay, in order that, amid the general consternation, he might the more easily escape.

Senseless, and of a death-like paleness, Eleanora was conveyed to a small cabinet, whither the Princess Doria, with other ladies, lost no time in following, and loosening her bodice, and using every effort to restore her. Speechless with agony, while she was being carried from him, Doria seemed like Orpheus after the loss of Eurydice, and paced up and down before the door like a maniac, no thought occupying his breast for the seizure of the pirate, but all centred in one hope alone-Eleanora's danger. But he soon, however, had the satisfaction of hearing that she was recovering, and was unwounded; and when she was informed of the escape of the pirate chief, his mind resumed its tranquillity. Delivering her thanks with her wonted grace and courtesy for the kindness lavished upon her, she took the proffered arm of the now happy Doria, and returned to the scene of her late peril.

Durazzo, enchanted to discover that the Marchèsa was uninjured, instantly issued a command to the "grand capitano" of the sbirri

sued the language of falsehood, that stern mo nitor, the still, small voice of CONSCIENCE, spoke to the inmost recesses of her heart.

"I cannot but lament that one of our order should thus disgrace his high lineage for ever!" observed Durazzo: "he is the last of his race."

Even the jealous, though noble-minded Doria, accorded in this remark; and he felt an emotion of pity, that one so young and brave, so handsome, so noble, and who would have added splendour to the name of his country in the battle-field, should thus have degraded himself by a lawless life.

After the congratulations had been renewed to the Marchèsa on her escape, and the conversation began to turn on other subjects, one by one the visitors made their adieux, and departed, leaving the fair owner at last with only the Princess Doria and her son. The latter, seeing in the present moment a too favourable opportunity of renewing his offers of love, and procuring the wished-for answer, to be lost, exclaimed, "I now entreat, Eleanora, and before my mother, that you decide my fate."

"Does love make you so impatient, Doria?" demanded his listener, in her softest accents, her face radiant with smiles.

"Consider, dearest, how long and ardently Uberto has loved you," intervened the Prin

cess.

"I have considered it; and here-here, then, is my hand, Doria; my heart you have long possessed," whispered Eleanora, blushingly giving him her hand.

"My bride!" exclaimed her enraptured lover,

saluting her passive cheek, "must I be like the Grecian, who on hearing of his son's glory died with joy?"

My dearest daughter-for so I may now call you," said the Princess, embracing Eleanora with fervour.

the deepening veil of evening parted with its sweet mantle from the heaving ocean, shone the vesper star. In her clear, cool rays, the waves glittered with a silvery brightness, and the town of Sestri reflected the warm and rosy hues of the horizon. Towards the north, dark as the cypresses around, were rising huge and heavily rolling clouds, evidently portending a tempest.

To own the real truth, however, a spice of worldly interest, a motive of worldly wisdom, was not unmingled with affection in the heart of At a considerable distance in the bay, and the mother. To say that the one lessened the scarcely visible from the shore, appeared a vessel purity and truth of the other in any degree, under press of easy sail, standing as if for the would be untrue; but even in our most un-shore; no flag fluttered from her dull and rakish selfish actions, there is always a feeling akin to the great world, that robs the heart of part of its greatest charm-disinterestedness. Perhaps, however, it may not be always so; but in general man is so weak, that it is no wonder that a love of self in a certain degree predominates in his To lose the favourite child of the bosom, composition; it is truly one of the "ills that whose infantine prattle hallowed our every flesh is heir to." Such was it then with the feeling, or the dearest friend of one's youth, mother of Doria. The rich domains of the whose counsel guided our wavering resolves; Pisani family, as well as the riches bequeathed to lose the beloved parent, to whom our deepest to her by the Marchesa Spinola, gave Eleanora debt of love and gratitude is due, are but light a double influence in the heart of the Princess, sufferings compared to those which now rent and called forth the reflection that all would the heart of Adro. On Eleanora he had fixed fall to the lot of her son. But we should be all-every hope, every thought of life was but doing the good old lady high injustice, did we for her, for her happiness; he had toiled for her, not own that she felt the sincerest affection for was ruined; through her he had, in his despair, her future daughter, apart from all worldly con- become a pirate-the leader of the fierce crew he siderations. Eleanora had ever made it her saw around him; for her his name had become study to win the good opinion of the mother of a watchword for slaughter, and for every imathe Prince by her graceful manners and as-ginable cruelty; for her his title had become a sumed goodness of heart, and by the display of such had entirely and completely done so. Ere the Princess departed to the Doria Palace, the marriage contract was drawn out and signed, and Eleanora Spinola became the afhanced bride of the head of the noblest family of Genoa.

masts. Upon the taffrail, his hand pressed to his pale brow, reclined the pirate chief; while his reckless crew, gathered in small groups on the forecastle, were revelling, gambling, or singing snatches of rude and licentious barcarolles.

But did her bosom beat high with love? Was it love for Doria, or for his princely coronet? or was it the love of ambition, or of self?

byeword of infamy and reproach. What had he

not suffered for her? how had she not treated

him? On the discovery of the ruin, the devastation she had wrought, he had fondly deemed that her hand, like an angel's, would have repaired it. Alas! how vain was such hope! Whither could he now turn for rest? That was lost-dead. Existed there aught in the wide world that could console, could compensate him for

his loss? Could a heart twice deceived revive and live? Never! never!-its springs are dry for ever!

Rapidly towards the pirate vessel, which had now neared the shore till it was distant about a league, approached a small boat. Adro fixed his anxious though mournful gaze on it for a moment, and then turned it away, seemingly unconsciously; a few moments more, and it came alongside, and a man, leaping on board, stood before him.

"Well, Gioachino, what hast thou discovered?" hastily inquired his chief.

"The sbirre are making search for you, Capitano mio; and we may expect to be attacked at dawn by the galleys, if we move not from our present station."

"Is that all?"

"I beheld grand preparations for some festivity in the Doria Palace, among which fireworks are erecting on the terraces fronting the sea. On demanding the cause of this display, I learned from a domestic that it was for the approaching nuptials of the Prince with the Marchesa Spinola, who are both at this moment at their own villas, towards which we are steering."

pale features of the pirate Adro, and she sunk senseless on the marble floor.

"I come in time to prevent thee again per

me, false Eleanora! We part no more," he continued; while a thunder-peal seemed to shake the villa to its very centre.

Adro groaned; his forehead contracted with a bitter and ominous frown; wounded pride, hatred, and vengeance took possession of his soul. Born with the noblest feelings, this heart-juring thyself; to prevent thee again betraying lessness in the being he so worshipped, and whom he thought perfection, only struck him with the more poignancy; and he resolved that Eleanora, while he lived, should never become the bride of another. His fancy depicted her smiles-the triumph of her vain and unloving heart-her heart, that cypress round which his love, like the rarest and most beautiful flower, had entwined itself but to wither and diedoomed to eternal sorrow.

These thoughts occupying his bosom but the space of a moment, he turned to the dark-visaged being who stood silently awaiting his commands, and gazing with a feeling of wonder at the painful struggles on the face of his commander, exclaimed,

"Gioachino! see the barge is prepared, and select the hardiest and bravest of the crew to man it. Let each be armed to the teeth, for we have a work of danger to-night."

Gioachino looked first at the thunder-clouds, which were rapidly approaching nearer and nearer, then at the face of his chief; but experience teaching him that the resolution of his leader once taken became immutable, he departed to execute his commands.

Night now set in, bringing with it the first symptoms of the approaching storm; the forked lightnings cross each other like the blades of encountering foes; the thunder rolls from the zenith in deafening peels; and amid the howl of the nightwinds rises the roar of the ocean, making the bold sea eagle tremble in his nest.

Clasping her in his arms, he bore her from the chamber; and Eleanora, with no power to move or utter a word, had just sufficient sense left to perceive that his belt was studded round with pistols and poignards, glittering in the light of the lamps from the vestibule below. He drew forth his sabre, that had been reddened in many a conflict; his dark hair streamed in wild disorder on his Antoninuslike though graceful shoulders; and his eye beamed with the mingled passions of love, despair, and revenge. He might have been, at that moment, compared to one of the dark angels bearing away a heavenly one from its ethereal sphere.

He had scarcely descended to the vestibule when he encountered Doria, who had just entered it. Astonishment and rage flashed from rushed on the pirate chief, and aimed a deadly the eyes of the latter: drawing his sword he stroke at him, who warded it off with ready skill. As thou valuest thy life, give way," shouted

Adro.

"Pass on, villain! if thou canst," replied Doria, fiercely renewing the attack.

Another moment, and the sabre of the pirate had struck the weapon from the hand of his antagonist, and the pirate then thrusting it into the body of the Prince, the latter fell seemingly lifeless on the ground. Eleanora, who at this moment returned to consciousness, beheld by the lurid light of a lamp the prostrate and bleedAt a lattice in a chamber of her villa at Sestri ing form of Doria at the feet of the pirate. reposed the form of Eleanora; the light from an A wild and piercing shriek burst from her lips alabaster lamp shed its soft radiance over her as she fruitlessly struggled to escape; but he features, which seemed to betray uneasiness only held her the more firmly in his iron and suspense. Was it the delay of Doria, whom grasp. Stepping over the body of his fallen she was awaiting, which gave birth to this ex-foe, he rushed forth from the villa towards pression? or was it remorse for her heartless the beach, and Eleanora again relapsed into a cruelty to the one she had once vowed to love state of insensibility. for ever? Was it this remorse that caused her to rise with a feeling of disquiet, and gaze forth on the ocean, and while she gazed on its foaming billows, illumined repeatedly by the ghastly glare of the lightning, that made her shudder at the thought that the forsaken one was now exposed to all its fury, a prey to all the feelings of despair, as well as to all the dangers of the tempest? Was it an indefinable feeling of approaching ill that made her shudder as she recalled his last words, "Tremble, perfidious woman! tremble"?

Return we now to the Spinola Palace. The buccanier had no sooner departed than the panic-stricken domestics, who had witnessed the conflict, but who had not dared to stir to rescue their mistress (such was their terror of the dreaded Adro) now hastened with all speed to the Durazzo Palace, which was situated about a hundred paces from their mistress's abode, to give the Marchesa information of the violence committed on her, and the catastrophe which had befallen the Prince Doria.

The violence of the tempest seemed every Whatever were the causes of this emotion-moment to increase, while Adro was pursuing and perhaps they were equally the contending his way to the pebbly beach (on which the high efforts of hope and fear-they were suddenly and angry surf was dashing furiously) with his interrupted by the window of her balcony being unconscious burden. burst open; the violent gust extinguishing the lamp, left the room in complete darkness; while a figure with hasty steps advanced into it. The same vivid flash that revealed to the intruder the place where Eleanora was, revealed to her the

The gleam of the lightning revealed the pirate barge rising on the foaming crests of the billows, and riding close to the shore, on which, save one, its daring crew were assembled, awaiting the return of the pirate chief. Scarcely had he