The sounds of ascending feet were now heard in the passage without; and presently, while the clangour of a thousand demons seemed to ring throughout the upper part of the building, a man rushed furiously into the room.  The blood of the young girl curdled in her veins.  She mechanically grasped the ledge of the window on which her aching head still reposed, and with her eyes firmly closed, to shut out from view the fiend whose sight she dreaded, even more than the death which threatened her, quietly awaited the blow that was to terminate at once her misery and her life.  Scarcely, however, had the feet of the intruder pressed the sanctuary of her bedchamber, when the heavy door, strongly studded with nails, was pushed rapidly to, and bolt and lock were heard sliding into their several sockets.  Before Clara could raise her head to discover the cause of this movement, she felt herself firmly secured in the grasp of an encircling arm, and borne hastily through the room.  An instinctive sense of something worse even than death now flashed across the mind of the unhappy girl; and while she feared to unclose her eyes, she struggled violently to disengage herself.

“Clara! dear Miss de Haldimar, do you not know me?” exclaimed her supporter, while, placing her for a moment on a seat, he proceeded to secure the fastenings of the second door, that led from the bed-chamber into the larger apartment.

Re-assured by the tones of a voice which, even in that dreadful moment of trial and destruction, were familiar to her ear, the trembling girl opened her eyes wildly upon her protector.  A slight scream of terror marked her painful sense of the recognition.  It was Captain Baynton whom she beheld:  but how unlike the officer who a few minutes before had been conversing with her from the ramparts.  His fine hair, matted with blood, now hung loosely and disfiguringly over his eyes, and his pallid face and brow were covered with gore spots, the evident spatterings from the wounds of others; while a stream that issued from one side of his head attested he himself had not escaped unhurt in the cruel melee.  A skirt and a lappel had been torn from his uniform, which, together with other portions of his dress, were now stained in various parts by the blood continually flowing from his wound.

“Oh, Captain Baynton,” murmured the fainting girl, her whole soul sinking within her, as she gazed shudderingly on his person, “is there no hope for us? must we die?”

“No, by Heaven, not while I have strength to save you,” returned the officer, with energy.  “If the savages have not penetrated to the rear, we may yet escape.  I saw the postern open just now, on my passage round the rampart, and the boat of the schooner upon the strand.  Ha!” he exclaimed, as he flew to the window, and cast his eye rapidly below, “we are lost!  The gate is still clear, and not an Indian to be seen; but the coward sailor is pulling for his life towards the