It is but half an hour of hard
riding, and I can be on board of her. The wind blows directly in her
favor; and if we can once bring her down behind that headland, we shall
infallibly cut off or sink these midnight depredators."
"Off, then!" cried the cornet, whose young blood was boiling for a
skirmish; "you will at least drive them to the shore, where I can deal
with them."
The words were hardly uttered, before Dillon, after galloping furiously
along the cliffs, and turning short into a thick wood that lay in his
route, was out of sight. The loyalty of this gentleman was altogether of
a calculating nature, and was intimately connected with what he
considered his fealty to himself. He believed that the possession of
Miss Howard's person and fortune were advantages that would much more
than counterbalance any elevation that he was likely to obtain by the
revolution of affairs in his native colony. He considered Griffith as
the only natural obstacle to his success; and he urged his horse forward
with a desperate determination to work the ruin of the young sailor
before another sun had set. When a man labors in an evil cause, with
such feelings, and with such incentives, he seldom slights or neglects
his work; and Mr. Dillon, accordingly, was on board the Alacrity several
minutes short of the time in which he had promised to perform the
distance.
The plain old seaman, who commanded the cutter, listened to his tale
with cautious ears; and examined into the state of the weather, and
other matters connected with his duty, with the slow and deliberate
decision of one who had never done much to acquire a confidence in
himself, and who had been but niggardly rewarded for the little he had
actually performed.
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