Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

PART VI.

THE TAKING OF NANTES.

CHAP. I.

EXIT GHOST.

Oh! open the door, some pity to show,
Oh! open the door to me, oh!

Though thou hast been false, I'll ever be true,
Oh! open the door to me, oh!

May I expire

Burns.

If in this strife I seek thy sire!
Notho' by him that poison poured,
No-tho' again he call me coward !—
But tamely shall I meet their steel?
No as each crest save his may feel!
One bound he made and gained the sand.
Already at his feet hath sunk

The foremost of the prying band,

A gasping head, a quivering trunk.

The Bride of Abydos.

"HAS Rudolf returned?" exclaimed Sir Hervé, as he re-entered his great tapestried reception-room, and summoned one of his young attendants. He had.

"Send him to me at once," said the Knight, seating himself rather flinging himself down on a chair. The young gentleman retired.

"Be careful, Rudolf," he said, when he found that man. "There's something uncommonly dangerous in the Lion's eye just now. He has sent me for you."

Sir Hervé sat for a few moments, silent and motionless; then suddenly springing up, he began to pace the room, as his habit was when excited.

"To be scorned!" he muttered. "Scorned and defied-by her son, too! But he shall answer it!By heaven, he shall answer it!" And he stamped his foot on the ground as he walked.

At this instant a part of the tapestry covering one of the doorways was lifted aside, and then dropped again. "Well; come in, Rudolf," he exclaimed. Rudolf entered.

He was a German; one of that large band of adventurers which, in those days, left their own beggarly country to enrich themselves with the wages or spoils of other and richer ones. His frame was colossal; his hardihood infinite; his principles, those of his master. His conscience was in partnership with him; his sleeping partner;—generally to be quieted, and prevented from making unpleasant inquiries when the accounts of the firm were under inspection-by a handsome bonus. I ought, in common fairness, to add, that the amount was always handed over to the

« AnteriorContinuar »