the student return; and, when hope was reluctantly abandoned, he arose to his feet, a startled and admonished man.  Still discretion did not desert him.  He saw the uselessness, and even the danger, of distracting the attention of the workmen, and the ill-fated scholar was permitted to pass away without a word of regret or a comment on his fate.  None knew of his loss but the wary mariner, nor was his person missed by any of those who had spent the day in his company.  But she to whom he hud plighted his faith on the banks of the Elbe long gazed at that pale star, and wept in bitterness that her feminine constancy met with no return.  Her true affections long outlived their object, for his image was deeply enshrined in a warm female heart.  Days, weeks, months, and years passed for her in the wasting cheerlessness of hope deferred, but the dark Leman never gave up its secret, and he to whom her lover’s fate alone was known little bethought him of an accident which, if not forgotten, was but one of many similar frightful incidents in his eventful career.

Maso re-appeared among the crowd, with the forced composure of one who well knew that authority was most efficient when most calm.  The command of the vessel was now virtually with him, Baptiste, enervated by the extraordinary crisis, and choking with passion, being utterly incapable of giving a distinct or a useful order.  It was fortunate for those in the bark that the substitute was so good, for more fearful signs never impended over the Leman than those which darkened the hour.

We have necessarily consumed much time in relating these events, the pen not equalling the activity of the thoughts.  Twenty minutes, however, had not passed since the tranquillity of the lake was first disturbed, and so great had been the exertions of those in the Winkelried, that the time appeared to be shorter.  But, though it had been so well employed, neither had the powers of the air been idle.  The unnatural opening in the heavens was shut, and, at short intervals, those fearful wheelings of the aerial squadrons were drawing nearer.  Thrice had fitful breathings of warm air passed over the bark, and occasionally, as she plunged into a sea that was heavier than common, the faces of those on board were cooled, as it might be with some huge fan.  These were no more, however, than sudden changes in the atmosphere, of which veins were displaced by the distant struggle between the heated air of the lake and that which had been chilled on the glaciers, or, they were the still more simple result of the violent agitation of the vessel.

The deep darkness which shut in the vault, giving to the embedded Leman the appearance of a gloomy, liquid glen, contributed to the awful sublimity of the night.  The ramparts of Savoy were barely distinguishable from the flying clouds, having the appearance of black walls, seemingly within reach of the hand; while the more varied and softer cotes of Vaud lay an indefinable and sombre mass, less menacing, it is true, but equally confused and unattainable.