in imitation of their leader, anticipate the triumphs of the morrow, and share in imagination the enormous wealth which the pirates have accumulated in their island. The chiefs assembled in the hall of Seyd, having terminated their banquet, have resigned themselves to the enjoyment of those delights, which the fumes of tobacco, the sounds of a monotonous music, and the voluptuous motions of the dancing-girls can furnish. A slave announces a dervise, just escaped from the pirate's island, who requests admission, and is immediately introduced. A long loose robe of green; a lofty cap surmounting a profusion of sable locks; a face which bears the marks of severe and continued penance, and a general air of feebleness and melancholy, indicate the self-devoted victim of religious austerity. Though his eye bespeaks the apathy produced by a life of solitude, it betrays no embarrassment, but steadily meets the gaze of the Pacha and the assembled chiefs: he replies to the questions which are put to him, with calmness and precision, and, after a time, having bestowed his blessing on the assembly, requests leave to depart, alleging his extreme weakness, in consequence of long continued hunger and want of rest. Seyd however sternly commands him to remain for the purpose of answering further inquiries, when his strength shall have been restored by the food which will be immediately set before him.

A slight and momentary flush of resentment which was excited in the cheeks of the holy man by this act of proud and obtrusive benevolence, passed unnoticed by the pacha; but the air of indifference and of disgust with which the famished man surveyed the proffered banquet, and even abstained from tasting the salt, that almost sacred emblem of hospitality, awakened his surprise, and perhaps his suspicions. These, however, had begun to yield to the firmness with which the dervise defended his conduct, on the plea of those vows which restricted him to the sole use of roots and water, and prohibited him from any but a solitary repast, when a sudden blaze of light, arising from the conflagration of the fleet, at once explained to Seyd the simulated character of his guest, whom he instantly urged his attendant slaves to seize and put to death.

Up rose the Dervise with that burst of light,
Nor less his change of form appall'd the sight;
Up rose the Dervise—not in saintly garb,
But like a warrior bounding from his barb.
Dash'd his high cap and tore his robe away-
Shone his mail'd breast, and flash'd his sabre's ray!
His close but glittering casque, and sable plume,
More glittering eye, and black brow's sabler gloom,
Glared on the Moslems' eyes some Afrit sprite,
Whose demon death-blow left no hope for fight.

The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow
Of flames on high, and torches from below;
The shriek of terror, and the mingling yell-
For swords began to clash, and shouts to swell,
Flang o'er that spot of earth the air of hell!
Distracted to and fro the flying slaves
Behold but bloody shore and fiery waves;
Nought heeded they the Pacha's angry cry,
They seize that Dervise!-seize on Zatanai!
He saw their terror-check'd the first despair
That urged him but to stand and perish there,
Since far too early and too well obey'd,
The flame was kindled ere the signal made;
He saw their terror-from his baldric drew
His bugle-brief the blast-but shrilly blew,
"Tis answer'd-" Well ye speed, my gallant crew!
Why did I doubt their quickness of career?

And deem design had left me single here?"--p. 38, 39.

The attendants of the Pacha fall beneath the sword of their single assailant, without the power or thought of resistance; the pirates are within the gates of the haram; they burst into the hall; and Seyd himself, bewildered by the suddenness and appalled by the extent of the calamity, is indignantly compelled to seek his safety in flight.

Conrad, with a view to render the confusion of his enemies irremediable, orders his men to fire the palace and the city; and had he persevered, amidst the general conflagration, in the pursuit of his distracted antagonist, his success would have been certain: but at this critical moment the piercing cry of female voices apprized him that the flames had reached the inner recesses of the haram, and the lover of Medora forgot in an instant his own peril and that of his followers. Leading those followers through the flames, from which the guardians of the haram had fled with dismay, he rescues the imprisoned beauties from their fate, and conveys them to a place of security. But scarcely has he dispelled their alarms, when he perceives that by providing for their safety he has sacrificed his own. Seyd, having had leisure to recover his presence of mind, and to observe the very disproportioned force of his assailants, rallies the fugitive Turks; inspires them with his own feelings of indignation and vengeance; assaults the pirates on all sides, and after a desperate conflict, finally overwhelms them by superior numbers.

This combat took place immediately under the eye of the haram queen, the favourite mistress of the Pacha.

'The dark-eyed lady, young Gulnare.'

The unutterable dismay with which the first appearance of Conrad had impressed her, when, besmeared with blood and blackened with smoke, he had seized and carried her off amidst the screams of her attendants and companions, had given way to feelings of gratitude and admiration. The courtesy, and gentleness, and respect, with which he treated a helpless female whom he had snatched from destruction, formed a striking contrast with the selfish arrogance of her Turkish lord. She could not behold without emotion the fate which now evidently impended over her gallant deliverer. She saw him vainly endeavouring to succour, or to unite his few surviving comrades; exposing his own breast, with an air of savage joy, to the weapons of his numerous assailants; gradually sinking under fatigue and loss of blood, and even when finally overpowered, still looking defiance on those whom his arm could no longer reach. Never had she felt less disposed to sympathize in the triumphs of her haughty lord than at the moment when the shouts of the multitude announced the sentence of death on the stake, which he had passed on his brave prisoner.

A surgeon was sent to bind up the wounds of Conrad, for the purpose of enabling him to support for as long a time, and to feel as acutely as possible, the series of torture to which he was destined; and the Corsair was then left, in chains, to meditate on the changes which a single hour (for little more had elapsed since his arrival in the bay) had produced in the state of his fortunes.

His prison-room was at the summit of the lofty and massive tower, which had alone survived the conflagration of the palace, and which at present contained the Pacha and the remnant of his court. The retrospect of a life which his conscience now severely condemned; the prospect of the horrid death by which his excesses were to be atoned; the loss of power, of wealth, of glory; and, above all, the sense of the misery which his fate must inflict on the sympathizing Medora, combined to agonize his mind. But the utter absence of all hope and all resource, co-operating with intolerable lassitude, at length blunted his feelings, and plunged him into a dull and torpid slumber.

"He slept in calmest seeming--for his breath
Was hush'd so deep-Ah! happy if in death!
He slept Who o'er his placid slumber bends?
His foes are gone-and here he hath no friends;
Is it some seraph sent to grant him grace?
No, 'tis an earthly form with heavenly face!
Its white arm rais'd a lamp-yet gently hid,
Lest the ray flash abruptly on the lid
Of that clos'd eye, which opens but to pain,
And once unclosed--but once may close again,

That form, with eye so dark, and cheek so fair,
And auburn waves of gemm'd and braided hair;
With shape of fairy lightness-naked foot,

That shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute-
Through guards and dunnest night how came it there?
Ah! rather ask what will not woman dare?
Who youth and pity lead like thee, Gulnare!
She could not sleep-and while the Pacha's rest
In muttering dreams she saw his pirate-guest,
She left his side-his signet ring she bore,
Which oft in sport adorn'd her hand before-
And with it, scarcely question'd, won her way

Through drowsy guards that must that sign obey.'-p. 50, 51.

Dazzled, however, by the light, he wakes and beholds the beauteous vision which is bending over him, with no less astonishment than that with which she contemplates the tranquillity of his repose. To her thanks for the life which he had saved; to a promise of obtaining for him a short respite of his sentence; and to her expressions of regret that his present weakness must disable him from profiting by any means of escape which she at her own peril might devise for him, he answers in a tone of careless and almost sportive indifference respecting the fate which awaits him,' adding however

"Yet there is one-to whom my memory clings,
"Till to these eyes her own wild softness springs.
My sole resources in the path I trod

Were these-my bark-my sword-my love-my God!

The last I left in youth-he leaves me now

And Man but works his will to lay me low.

I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer
Wrung from the coward crouching of despair,
It is enough-I breathe-and I can bear.
My sword is shaken from the worthless hand
That might have better kept so true a brand;
My bark is sunk or captive—but my love-
For her in sooth my voice would mount above:
Oh! she is all that still to earth can bind-
And this will break a heart so more than kind,
And blight a form-till thine appeared, Gulnare!
Mine eye ne'er ask'd if others were as fair?"

"Thou lov'st another, then?-but what to me
Is this 'tis nothing-nothing e'er can be:
But yet-thou lov'st-and-Oh! I envy those
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can repose,
Who never feel the void-the wandering thought

That sighs o'er visions-such as mine hath wrought."-p.54,55.

Without urging any claim to a heart thus confessedly pre-occupied, Gulnare takes care to impress on the mind of Conrad the extreme reluctance with which she submits to the passion of Seyd, -a reluctance which nothing but the hope of achieving his deliverance could now induce her to dissemble. She then, after repeating her promise to procure at least one day's delay of his execution, presses his hand to her heart,-drops a parting tear on the chains which fetter it,

And, noiseless as a lovely dream, is gone.'

CANTO III.

The three days which Conrad, on his departure, had fixed as the period of his return, were now elapsed. The weather had been uniformly propitious: the cruiser commanded by Anselmo, (Conrad's lieutenant, had returned, in safety, on the second day, but returned without bringing any intelligence: some doubt and anxiety prevailed throughout the island; and Medora, whose hopes bad long been obscured by the most fatal prognostics, was no longer able to repel the conviction that those prognostics had been finally realized. The darkness of night had closed the long series of her expectations and disappointments: her eyes were strained in vain to behold from her watch-tower the distant horizon; and, impatient of her present feverish suspense, she sought, by descending to the beach, to obtain, not indeed a fresh source of hope, but at least an earlier confirmation of her calamity.

And there she wandered, heedless of the spray
That dash'd her garments oft, and warn'd away.
She saw not, felt not this; nor dared depart ;

Nor deemed it cold-her chill was at her heart.'

She has indeed justly foreboded the event which consigns her to utter despair. A shattered boat, manned by a few feeble and bleeding wretches, the remnant of that gallant crew which Conrad had lately headed, is cast upon the shore. Scarcely conscious by what means they had themselves escaped and survived the loss of blood and the long want of food during their tedious navigation, they were only able to tell, in answer to the inquiries of the frantic Medora, that only one of their number had seen their intrepid chief still alive, but bleeding, and in the hands of the enemy.

The feverish strength which Medora had derived from the war of her contending feelings was now crushed at once. She dropped senseless at the feet of the narrator; and the stroke of death was with difficulty averted by the pity of the bystanders, who snatched her from the waves, and consigned her to the care of her female attendants. The toil-spent mariners then proceeded to convey to Anselmo and his crew the tidings of their late fatal enterprise; and