beloved Jerusha. The Duke of Guienne drew near to give his assistance to all.

"It is as I feared," murmured Jerusha of Palestine, faintly, but composedly. "We perish.-Oh, Arnulf, my preserver, my friend, but that a few short peaceful years had been granted us; but this-and the princess, my benefactress! help me, Arnulf, to disencumber myself of these useless robes, that I may be prepared to render her that assistance which she so much merits at my hands.And now this veil, the waters of the deep will, perhaps, but too soon shroud the face, which you, Arnulf,—” she was interrupted by her tears, "which you called beautiful. And now this armlet, Arnulf, a mother's, as you say.”She half unloosed the ornament as she spoke, and the jewels caught the eye of the pitying Duke of Guienne. The duke sprang forward, "Whence these jewels, that armlet?" he breathlessly demanded; and, ere the halffainting Jerusha or her lover could reply, his eyes had wandered over the features of the Orphan. "Can it becan it be my child, my long lost Catherine de Poictiers!" he tremblingly exclaimed; "but this, and this must tell me and decide."

As he spoke, he pressed back the loosened dress that shaded her shoulder, and a small red cross met his gaze. He touched a hidden spring of the armlet, and two miniature portraits appeared, one the picture of himself, the other of his wife, the mother of Jerusha. Bending over his child, the venerable duke hastily pronounced his blessing upon her, while Arnulf, still supporting her halffainting form, exclaimed, "kneel with me, fair Catherine, for in the illustrious Duke of Guienne behold your father!"

But the fair Catherine heeded them not. “It is finished,” she faintly murmured, "my destiny is finished, the prophecy has been fulfilled. I have found a father amid the tempests of the seas, and the earthly pilgrimage of the orphan of Palestine is over."

The duke, impressed with the increasing horrors of the scene, drew her gently towards him. "We have, indeed, met under circumstances too perilous for us not to fear, and a few words, my child, must now suffice. I lost your mother and yourself, then an infant, in a retreat from the holy wars; my soldiers informed me that both of you were dead, and I retired from the crusades, broken alike in health and happiness. But your mother, whom this, my gift, transferred to you, informs me is now no more, has left her history for me alone, perhaps, to record. I must be brief. She was the daughter of Edgar Atteling; driven from her kingdom, she became my wife. I dared not then acknowledge her."

The long lost grandchild of Edgar Atteling bowed her head at these words in resignation to her fate; for ere the darkness of the night should fall, herself, her lover, her friend, her new found father, all must perish. Nor was the sad prophecy far from fulfilment; while she yet clung to her protecting father and her lover, a shriek of terror escaped the crew. The ship had neared a rock, and while the contending waves were now tossing her aloft upon their stormy ridges, or plunging her, streaming with their foam, into the still more fearful depths of the abyss, the man at the helm had been hurled from the wheel, and the mast of the galley had gone by the board. The aged Fitz Stephen, whose devotion for the prince seemed rather

to increase amidst the fury of the tempest, ordered the boat to be lowered, then hastily addressing the prince, said earnestly, "I carried William of Normandy, my countryman and your ancestor, in safety, and shall you ;— but my shipmates are fatigued, descend with them into the boat, while the lull of the tempest now enables us. Lend your efforts to their exhausted strength to bring her under the quarter, while I bestow the princess in safety by your side. Delay not, and all will be well." The agitated prince attempted to reply, Fitz Stephen hastily interrupting him-" Descend, my prince, or the rude troopers of Guienne will soon cheat us of our last, our only help and hope."

The prince remained to question him no further, but ruffling the boisterous wind and broken sprays that deluged the deck, gained the stern, slid his feet into a short ladder of ropes, and dropped himself into the boat, and was in an instant drifted from the vessel. A loud shout of joy and triumph followed from Fitz Stephen, who, in spite of the utmost force of the gale, stood firm at the helm, now rendered useless, and waiving his hand in the air, exclaimed, "Praise be to God, the grandson of William the Conqueror is safe!”

The passionately expressed words of FitzStephen reached the unhapyy princess, who, now left to perish amidst the horrors of shipwreck, uttered one long wild shriek, that rung the note of horror and despair afar, even upon the waving billows of the ocean. But the prince needed no, this woe-struck summons; he stood erect in the boat, and grasping a dagger, called on the crew to return to the shipt and to save at least his sister and her friend. Awed by

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his manner, by an almost incredible effort they in a few moments regained the ship. The princess, to whom frenzy had lent courage, was in the act of springing into the boat followed by the Count Arnulf and the duke, bearing with them the almost lifeless Catherine of Poictiers, when the despairing soldiers of the crusades, inflamed by excess, bounded with the speed of men escaping from a conflagration, trampling, in their endeavours to gain the boat, on all before them, and rushing headlong into it, overfilled and swamped it, before half their numbers had time to enter. The prince was seen, for a moment, throwing his arms towards his sister; but the cry of horror sent up by the disappointed soldiery, the dying sighs of the expiring Catherine, the agony of the countess, and despair of Arnulf, were quickly lost in a scene equally terrible and equally immediate. A heavy sea struck the ship, sweeping from stem to stern post, and dashing her into fragments upon the fatal rock. Arnulf sunk back with the now lifeless body of his bride into the deep gully of the receding waters, and was seen no more. Fitz Stephen, who had clung to the remnants of the wreck, determined not to survive the prince, threw himself headlong into the sea. The waters had already closed over the bodies of his companions.