Page:Demon ship, or, The pirate of the Mediterranean.pdf/7

Rh on my ear, in the words of a ballad I had once loved to sing with her—

'The green sod is no grave of mine, The earth is not my pillow, The grave I lie in shall be thine, Our winding sheet—the billow.'

I awoke,—yet for a moment appeared still dreaming; for there, hovering over the foot of my couch, I seemed still to behold the form of Margaret Cameron. She was leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, and overlooking my couch. I sat up, and gazed on the objects around me, in order to recover my apparently deluded senses. The full moon was in her zenith. The heat was intense, the calm profound. There lay the different vessels of our little squadron, nought seen save their white sails in the moonlight, and nought heard save their powerless flapping, and the restless plashing of the becalmed waves, only agitated by the effort of our vessel to cleave them. Still the moonlight fell on the white form and pale countenance of Margaret. I started up. 'This is some delusion,' said I, 'or because one of the countess's women resembles my early idol, must I turn believer in ghost stories, and adopt at thirty-six what I scouted at sixteen?' The suddenness of my rising seemed to scare my fair phantom and, in the hastiness of her retreat, she gave ample proof of mortal fallibility by stumbling over some coils of cable that happened to lie in her way. The shock brought her to her knees. I was up the steps in one instant; seized an arm and then a hand, soft, delicate, and indubitably of flesh and blood, and restored the lady to her feet. She thanked me in gentle tones that sent a thrill through all my veins, and made me again half deem that 'the voice of the dead was on mine ear.' I now expressed my fears that my sudden gestures had been the eausecause [sic] of this little aecidentaccident [sic]. 'I fear, she replied, 'my reckless song disturbed your slumbers.' After a few more words had passed between us, I ventured to ask, in a tone as indifferent as I could assume, whether she claimed kindred with Captain Hugh Cameron, of A———? The striking likeness which she bore to his amiable and deceased daughter must, I observed, plead my apology. She looked at me for a moment with unutterable surprise; then added, with dignity and perfect self-possession, 'I have then, probably, the pleasuropleasure [sic] of addressing some old acquaintance of Captain Cameron? How the mistake arose which induced any one to suppose that his child was no more, I confess myself at a loss to imagine. I am the daughter of Captain