But time presses; he
must be awakened, and his escape effected at every hazard."
"Nay, then, delay no longer, but rouse him from his sleep."
"Griffith! Edward Griffith!" said the soft tones of Cecilia, "Griffith,
awake!"
"Your call is useless, for they sleep nightly among tempests and
boisterous sounds," said Katherine; "but I have heard it said that the
smallest touch will generally cause one of them to stir."
"Griffith!" repeated Cecilia, laying her fair hand timidly on his own.
The flash of lightning is not more nimble than the leap that the young
man made to his feet, which he no sooner gained, than his dirk gleamed
in the light of the lamps, as he brandished it fiercely with one hand,
while with the other he extended a pistol, in a menacing attitude,
towards his disturbers.
"Stand back!" he exclaimed; "I am your prisoner only as a corpse."
The fierceness of his front, and the glaring eyeballs, that tolled
wildly around, him, appalled Cecilia, who shrank back in fear, dropping
her mantle from her person, but still keeping her mild eyes fastened on
his countenance with a confiding gaze, that contradicted her shrinking
attitude, as she replied:
"Edward, it is I; Cecilia Howard, come to save you from destruction; you
are known even through your ingenious disguise."
The pistol and the dirk fell together on the blanket of the young
sailor, whose looks instantly lost their disturbed expression in a glow
of pleasure.
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