Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/65

Rh was left them but to die. Then the second sister, remembering what the first one had so generously done, followed her example, and suggested that her younger sister should kill her for food; and when she had finished uttering the last words of her advice she also dropped down and died.

The poor young girl, now left alone in the large dreary castle, felt very disconsolate, and rent the air with her lamentations. But after a while, being of a courageous mind, she thought to herself that weeping was no remedy for her woes, and that she must devise some means of escape from her prison before she became faint again with want. She now set about examining the various rooms of which the castle was composed, and when she reached the top of the watch tower she looked out and saw a ship sailing on the ocean. Overjoyed at the sight, she at once began to make signals, waving her handkerchief in hopes of attracting the notice of some one in the vessel. The sailors were not slow to perceive the signal, and calling up their captain, drew his attention to it. The captain, who was a humane and chivalrous man, directed the ship towards the spot, and effected an entrance by scaling the wall of the fortress. On reaching the watch tower, the captain and the sailors that accompanied him were shocked to see a maiden of such rank and beauty treated worse than a common criminal. They took