Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/91

Rh of Arcon. For forty days the assailants stormed the town on all sides, which after a most desperate resistance fell into their hands. When all around was noise and tumult a small but courageous band of citizens joined the prince, and like the heroes of King David, aided by night, after bursting open the town gates forced their way through the enemy’s camp. They reached the shore and went under sail in a small vessel which they found anchored off the strand, without knowing whither to bend their course. Soon the fugitives could only discern their paternal shores in the dim distance, but the tearful eyes of the unhappy prince were still directed towards his former possessions, not regretting so much the loss of his dominions, as the absence of his faithful consort and his little babe still at the breast—the image of the mother and the joy of the father. The uncertainty of his wife’s and child’s fate, not knowing whether they had fallen a prey to the conqueror, or been sacrificed by the enraged enemy drove him nearly to despair. Far from being thankful to his faithful followers for saving him from the voracious sword, he thought those happy whom pallid death had delivered from knawing anguish.

Destiny itself seemed to pity the unfortunate prince, and to grant him the wish of terminating his