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I found them waiting, all in readiness. My account they heard without a word of observation. We took the body on board, and, turning the horse adrift to seek a new master where he could find one, shoved off, and made sail across the Irish Channel. When about half way, we threw the body overboard, along with the clothes I had worn that night, and two days afterwards made the Welsh coast.

We immediately sold our boat and dispersed : some went to labor at a great public work that was then in progress, others went to the harvest in England and Scotland; for my part, I became a wanderer over the face of the world for twenty years. During that time I had a taste of all the services-military, naval, and East Indian: but my adventures during that time have little to do with the story I am telling you—besides, I am afraid I will hardly have time to finish it.

Well, about a couple of months ago, I found myself once more on Irish ground. I was then one of a gipsy party, and we had just crossed from Scotland to Belfast, along with the crowds of reapers returning from the Scotch harvest, or shearing, as it is called. We travelled southward ;and, as we drew near this town, I proposed to my brethren of the gang, that we might commence distilling. This was not so much on account of the gain to be got by the trade, but in order that I might have always a ready supply of that stuff, without which life was now to me an unendurable torment.

The proposal was eagerly adopted, and we set about procuring a suitable apparatus immediately. On coming to this town to buy tin-plate wherewith to construct it (for we all understood tinplate-working in a degree,) I was struck with the appearance of a woman I saw ballad-singing in the streets. She sang beautifully; and this, added to the remains, very perceptible, of great beauty, drew her abundance of encouragement. It was herself-Ellen Lucas! Thereupon, the single and potent passion I had formorly borne for her, and which still throughout my long wanderings had filled my dreams, returned in all its vehemence.

Yes! though she had betrayed me, I never hated her! my curses and my revenge were directed, not toward her, but against her accomplice, Ormond: and now, how I could have blessed the gentleman I saw showering coppers into her bag! She frequented the more aristocratic streets of the town, and seemed to find it profitable to cultivate an appearance of faded gentility-of one who had seen better days.

When I spoke to her and mentioned my name, she was struck dumb. She plainly knew me; yet she went away with me where I led, without speaking a word. After a while, however, she recovered herself, and professed herself overjoyed to meet me. A long course of accusation, argument, and recrimination ensued; which ended, as you will not be surprised to learn, if you are at all experienced, in my once more becoming the dupe of this Delilah.

Her connexion with Ormond before our marriage she denied; and though I knew she was lying, I took her word. Her after connexion with him she excused on account of her poverty. She was starving and without a lodging; he offered her her former home, and she accepted it. All

this I took from her as valid; and, had she offered no excuse at all, it would have been the same thing. I was infatuated.

She was anxious to know what had become of Ormond. His horse, she informed me, had been found several weeks after his disappearance, in the possession of some travelling hawkers, to whom, however, no connexion with him could be brought home. They stated they had found it grazing in a sequestered nook among the moors, and brought forward proof that they were in quite a different part of the country at the time implicated. With a strange delight I detailed to her the true account of his end. She listened in silence, and without comment.

It was now agreed between us, that she should adopt my way of life; and she forthwith did so, and became one of our gang. A most useful member, too, she proved to be. With a bottle of spirits under her shawl, she used to go about from house to house, in a quiet, stealthy way, giving the people glasses by way of trial, and making whispered bargains for the disposal of gallons of the same stuff.

By this means we were rapidly drawing around us a profitable connexion. Our still was set a-going in the identical vault I have described: the tower was much changed in other parts, but the vault remained the same. Here I was constantly employed-the rest of our gang going about as gipsies, stealing grain, potatoes, and other materials, and also selling, when they could, the manufactured produce.

One day, while I was thus employed, and sitting watching, in a state of dreamy half-intoxication, I heard several voices speaking low and whispering about the ruin. This gave me no concern, for I distinctly heard my wife's voice, and I concluded it must be the rest of onr band. There was much talking; presently the sound reached the mouth of the vault.

"Bless me, how strong it smells!" said a strange voice; and there was a sound of sniffing.

I was alarmed, and instantly on the alert.

"There, that is a trap, that square hole there!" said the voice of Ellen Lucas: "it's only four feet deep-but look sharp when you jump down, for he is a devil!"

I immediately saw what an egregious dupe I had been. Here was I caught like a badger in his hole; yet I determined to give them a double again. “And as for that arch-traitress,” said I—and the rest was thought -not spoken.

Springing across the vault to the place behind the still, where was the vent in the wall, I crept into it, with the view of making my way to the outside; but, close to the outer aperture, a large stone had slipped from the upper part-the roof, you know, of the hole-and impeded my escape. Instantly for I heard them descending through the trap-instantly I put my shoulder against it, and, lying upon my front, I thrust my heels against projecting stones on each side, and bore my whole force against it. One strong shove, and it shook; the next-it gave way; but that instant I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon and split me. The wall had fallen in upon me! the vent was filled up, and I lay in the bottom of it, crushed with tons of hard stone above my broken body! Oh, the weight

-the murderous weight-of these mighty stones crushing my very bones, to powder!-I feel them now!-they are hot-red-hot !-ah! Ormond you hound!-will you heap them on me?-will you-will you-ah—a— a-ah

A quantity of fluid bubbled from his mouth,—a convulsive grin passed across his face-a strange indefinable change came over his black, staring eyes, and I knew he was dead.

I turned abruptly round, and beheld the soldier standing behind me, with his terror-bleached face in vivid contrast to his red coat and glittering accoutrements. He had come into the room from the ward without, hearing the voice of his prisoner in continuous talking, and, pausing behind the door, he heard nearly the whole narrative.

"Well, sir," said he to me, " did you ever hear the like of that? Them two—that is, this hero and the other chap-must have been a pair of the dreadfullest villains-"

"Yes, my good man, they form two very excellent instances-the one of villany from ungoverned passion, the other from depraved and perverted judgment. But you don't understand these things."

The Mysteries of the Deep.

WE were somewhere off Cape d'Agulhas, on our homeward voyage from the Mauritius, fighting hard against a head wind, which, though not quite a gale, was yet sufficiently provoking. There was a nasty short cross sea too, and not the mile-long rolling swell you usually meet with in that quarter of the world, for the wind had suddenly changed. It was bitterly cold, and there was no lack of rain, nor of sleet either; and as you walked the deck, you would occasionally, among the soft, cold, squashy slipperiness, feel a big hailstone crunch under your shoe, by way of variety. Now, as I was never partial to the above sort of circumstances, I was making myself as comfortable as I could below, with a glass of cold grog and some old sheets of the Bell's Life in London comicalities, when one of the boys, scrambling down the ladder, shoved open the sliding-door of the cabin, thereby admitting a gust of cold air that made me shiver.

"Well, what do you want?" said I.

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If you please, sir, the captain's compliments, would you come upon deck?-there's a funonymon."

"Oh, is there?-the Flying Dutchman, I shouldn't wonder-we are just about his cruising-ground now.' And hastily putting on somebody's

pea-jacket, and somebody else's hard-a-weather hat, I clambered on deck and looked around me. Everything was dark and cold, though it had ceased to rain, and the quarter-deck and gangways had been swept. The sky seemed one mass of sooty black clouds, and you could not tell, from any indication of your eyes, whether it was vaulted, or flat as the ceiling in your room-all was blackness, shapelessness, and obscurity. The sea had a sort of dull, greyish appearance, from the mixture over its surface of white foam and pitchy water; there was nothing bright or phosphorescent about it; it was cold, dreary, and dispiriting; and the heavily-laden little brig plunged, and seemed to shake her shoulders, and plunge again, as if she had no particular relish for it herself; while at every shrug a shower of spray was blown aft, falling in big splashy drops upon the deck. As I was thus appreciating the full comfortlessness of the scene, the same boy addressed me, telling me the captain was forward, on the weather-side of the forecastle. I immediately began to clapperclaw my way forward, holding on now by one thing, now by another, for she pitched so violently, that I was momentarily expecting to be chucked clean overboard. At length I brought up alongside the skipper, who, standing on a hen-coop, and holding on by the weather-shrouds, was peering anxiously out to windward.

"Do you hear that?-did you hear anything?" said he, suddenly turning to me.

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Nothing," said I," but the moaning of the wind in the rigging, and the pile-driving thumps of her bows."

"Ah!-hush-not a word-listen-there it is again !" "Where?" said I.

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Right out in the direction of my hand there-don't you hear that?" 'By Heaven, I hear a voice!--there again!" Here there was a lull, and we all distinctly heard it. It was a long, mournful cry, and had in its sound something inexpressibly harrowing. It seemed the voice of a strong man, exhausted in mind and body, weakened to a womanish state of feeling, by hunger, exposure, misery, and despair; calling for help without hope to find it. It was actually musical, and had in its prolonged melancholy cadence something so acutely touching as to make me experience a feeling precisely similar to that I used to have in my childhood, just when at the point of falling away into a fit of crying. We all stood entranced and motionless, listening till its dying fall was lost in the rush of the wind and dash of the waves.

"The Lord look to that poor soul, anyhow!" said a hoarse voice behind me, but in a tone of much feeling. I turned, and saw it was one of the crew, who were clustered, some forward at the heel of the bowsprit, and the others farther aft, round the head of the long-boat; everybody was on deck, and all had heard the cry, and were making whispering remarks, which, being to the windward, I could not distinctly hear.

Again the wind lulled, and again the long mournful “hillo—0—0” swelled and sank upon our ears.

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It is broad abeam of us now, sir," said the mate.

Yes," said the master, "it must be drifting down with the current. Can any of you see anything?" But no one answered.

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Here, you Tom

Bradley, jump aft in the gangway, and answer their hail, whoever they

are.

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The young man, who had a remarkably loud and clear voice, went aft, mounted into the weather main rigging, and immediately a trumpet-like hillo-boy!" rang over the water. A minute, and it was answered by the same mournful call: but this time I could swear it was articulate-there were distinct words, though I could not make them out; moreover, the voice seemed more distant, and was well upon the quarter. The master and mate were of the same opinion.

"Come in board, Bradley," said the former. "Put her about, Mr. A(to the mate,) "we are sure to fetch the precise spot next tack." And immediately, with the usual noise and bustle, but with more than the usual smartness, round went the brig, and away upon the larboard tack.

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"Put a look-out at each cat-head, and one at each gangway, Mr.

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Ay, ay, sir."

For a few minutes we went on in silence.

"I think we should be near the spot now, sir," said the mate. I hail them ?"

"Shall

"Yes," said the master; and the mate, going to leeward, hallooed at the top of his voice. There was no answer. By this time the moon became apparent, struggling through the fleeciness, between two of the great cloud-masses. You could not see her exact disk, but the brightness between the clouds, and the light shed upon the surface of the sea, little as it was, gave indication of her intention shortly to unveil herself. Keep a bright look out forward there!" sang out the master

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"Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, not in the usual drawling way, but quickly and sharply, as if anxiously on the alert.

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At that

Gangways!" Another similar reply. "Hail again, Mr. AThe mate hallooed again. There was no sound in answer. moment the moon shone out bright and clear. The edges of the vast rolling clouds became, as it were, silverised, and a broad flow of light fell upon the sea around us, rendering everything within the eye's range clear and distinct..

Do you see anything, men—any boat, or raft, or anything in the

water?"

But the light was so bright and sudden, that it was nearly a minute, during which each man had searched with his eyes all the space within the horizon, before they answered, in a tone of disappointment and superstitious dread, "Nothing, sir-nothing, sir," one after the other.

"Bless my soul, isn't that strange? Do you see anything?" (to me.) Nothing," said I.

"Here, Mr. A-, go aloft into the maintop, and send two or three of the people aloft also to look out. I say, Bradley, sing out, will ye !—hail again.'

Again the seaman hallooed: we waited, but there was no answering cry. The master was now much excited.

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Maintop there!"

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