escape with my bride, I shall be, ere then, dead in the breach or the gateway. Murtough O'Brien, you have promised; I never knew you break a promise. Murtough O'Brien, your fosterbrother calls on you for aid in his worst extremity. I think you will not fail him."

"I will not," said the man doggedly.

"But when I have done it, I will die!—by all the saints in Heaven!" "You will think better of it, Murtough. Good friend, you will think better of it. But you have made my heart very light-very light, my best Murtough."

"And mine, God bless you for it!" added Florence Desmond, in his fine deep voice, a big tear standing in his eye as he spoke. "The bitterness of death hath passed away."

And as he uttered the words, they passed from the ordnance-vault into the stables; and as they did so, they heard hurried steps, and loud voices, hastening that way, and calling for the earl-the O'Brien.

"We are in time, and no more," said he. "Murtough! remember!"—and he laid his finger on his lips hastily. Then, as one or two of the men rushed in, eagerly seeking for him—" I come," he said, "I come. Look to those chargers, as I bade you, Murtough; they must not starve, an if we are besieged. Now, men, what is it?"

66

Tidings of the foe, my lord," cried one.

"The countess, my lord !-the countess !"

"Great God!-what of my mother?"
"She is dying!-the Lady Ellinor"

"Go, go! O'Brien," exclaimed Desmond, rushing out of the stables. "I will see to the tidings and the outposts. Fear nothing; I can make them good these three hours."

"They are at hand, my lord! they are close at hand. Even now you may hear their trumpets!"

And he spoke truth, for the instant they stood in the clear court-yard the flourish of the trumpets and the clang of the kettle-drums of the Ironsides were heard distinctly, and the

next moment the sharp and sudden roar of a culverin from the lower gate-house showed that they were even now within shot of ordnance.

Such was the scene in the midst of which the son was summoned to the death-bed of his mother; and, ere he stood beside her, the mighty ramparts, and the solid rock itself on which they stood, seemed to reel to the repeated crash, reverberated by a thousand echoes of the iron artillery.

Ir was a strange and awful picture. The beautiful light of a calm summer morning fell in gleams of gold and purple, of emerald and crimson glory, through the stained windows of the castle chapel; and there, before the rails of the high altar, at which she had been kneeling, when the shaft of the unseen destroyer found her, lay the majestic form of the old countess, still in the agonies of death, proud and majestic, with her head propped on the knees of her lovely niece, who, pale as the stone statues of the holy saints around her, yet resolute in that extremity of terror, ministered to the last wants of her dying kinswoman, alone upheld by her own nobility of purpose.

One of the sacred chalices stood beside them-the readiest, the only ready vessel in extremis, filled with wine brought in haste; and just below the altar steps stood the boy Torlogh, white as ashes, clad in complete steel, with a musquetoon on either arm, each with its slow match burning. He dared not, even in that dread juncture, disobey his lord, or leave them unprotected.

And upon this appalling group looked down, from the almost living canvass of the altar-piece, the calm, benignant face of the painted Saviour; calm and benignant, and fraught with love ineffable and unbounded mercy, even amidst the agonies

of that dread, slavish death upon the cross. And on that wondrous form, and on those almost speaking lineaments, dwelt the fast-glazing eyes of the dying woman, drawing deep draughts of comfort from the sight, and hope beyond the grave, confident of immortality. And, all the while, the roar of the incessant ordnance, now mingled with the thick rattle of the volleying harquebuss, the clang of steel, and the shouts and shrieks of combatants at hand-to-hand encounter, pealed upward to the pure and holy skies, as if the earth which He hath termed His footstool had been converted into a battle-ground for fiends.

A quick step clanged upon the chancel pavement. The dy ing woman's eyes turned to the sound:

"Mother!-my mother!" and he kneeled beside her, and grasped her stiffening cold fingers, and his tears fell like fiery rain upon her brow. A life-time rushed upon his mind, in that most awful moment, and all things else were forgotten, as if they had never been.

66

Weep not for me, my son-weep not for me. Happy am I to die the mistress of my own unconquered castle; thrice happy if I die in time! Tell me, oh, tell me, that my madness, my proud, selfish, wicked madness, has not ruined you. Tell me quick, for my spirit tarries only to hear that—without hearing which, I cannot pass in peace-tell me, my son, that you can yet escape that you can save this angel from those howling fiends without !"

She spoke with strange rapidity, and with a mighty effort, as if she spoke at all only by a prodigious effort of the will, and feared that her strength would fail her ere she finished. "Mother! There is time, and you

"Shall die happy. Ellinor-Ellinor, your hand,”—and she placed it with her dying fingers in his hand. "Bless you, my children; now you are his-Ellinor-his wife! Now you are bound to obey him, whatever he commands you! Promise me, my child !”.

"I promise you, my mother."

"Raise me―raise me, my children. I would fain die-standing!"

And they raised her erect to her feet; and she stood feebly for an instant, gazing on the image of her Saviour, with her poor arms outstretched toward it, as she would fly.

"Kiss me-kiss me, children. I am going-going to your father.

me!"

I will tell-him-how good-you have been-kiss

Her words came at intervals; her breath was drawn laboriously; she seemed scarce conscious that they kissed her.

Then came a roar, a thousand times louder than the loudest crash of artillery—a short, breathless pause, and the rumbling din of falling masonry-another pause, and a shriek as of hundreds in their agony.

She heard, but understood it not. A light came into her eyes, and a flush on her pale cheek. She stood perfectly erect, and her lips moved; but those two only who supported her, her children, could mark the words they syllabled:

"In time!—the Lord be praised!-in time! Domine nunc dimittis

Her head drooped upon the shoulder of her son—she was dead!

Reverently he lowered her to the ground, closed those dear eyes, and pressed a long last kiss on the white, clay-cold lips to which he had so often clung in happy childhood-composed her limbs decently, covered them with her long robe; and then, lifting her in his strong arms over the railings of the altar, laid her on her back at its base, with her hands folded on her bosom, as if in the act of prayer.

"There even they will not dare to harm her!"

"What mean you, Dermot? You will not leave her so—

were sacrilege to do so!"

"Not to do so were sacrilege?

-it

Heard you not her last

words? Obey!-you must obey now, Ellinor-however hard