Page:Cross, or, The Spanish champion.pdf/34

32 "On my recovery, seeing my child in the arms of a woman near me, I eagerly stretched out my arms for him, but the Moor who had first seized me caught me up, and regardless of my entreaties for my infant, placed me again on his steed, and rode swiftly away; the rest, mounting their horses, followed him. Afterwards, dismissing his party, he conveyed me to an old mansion, surrounded on every side by lofty trees, where he committed me to the care of an old woman, bidding her see me well attended; he then spurred his steed, and was in a moment out of sight. A raging fever seized me, and from that instant all recollection forsook my mind: and, I was afterwards informed, insanity possessed me. In the end, however, the power of medicine recovered my faculties, and I was soon enabled to leave my bed. The Moor then sent me notice, that on the approaching evening he had determined on visiting me; my heart sunk within me at this intelligence, and I saw no means of escaping the ruin that awaited me. The windows of my apartment were covered with a close lattice work, and looked into an adjoining wood. They were securely fastened, yet my desperate situation, which urged me to any attempt, made me resolve to burst one of them open.

"My strength proved for a long time unavailing, but despair giving me additional power, I at length succeeded, and gazed around me withc a rising hope; which, however, was soon damped, on beholding beneath, and lose to the base of the mansion, a narrow river.

“However desperation seized me, and, dreading nothing but of the designs which the Moor had upon my person, I threw myself headlong from the window. The water received me on my fall, and on recovering, I saw a man standing over me,