and the career of his disobedience. In two days after sailing from Malta, the Syren and her companions arrived off the coast of Greece; and after cruising along the shores of the Morea, the Admiral's seventy-four led the way towards the bay of Salamis, and the port of Athens, where they remained for a few days longer, whilst Frank and his companions were permitted to visit the ruins of the ancient city. Here he found all poverty, and gloom, and sorrow; the Turks, who were lately masters of the whole of Greece, were then carrying on a cruel war against the unfortunate inhabitants, who had risen in rebellion against their oppressors, and he saw hundreds of miserable wretches, who had been deprived of their property and their relatives by the horrors of war, wandering amidst the overthrown houses of the city and the ruined monuments of their ancestors, in rags and wretchedness. There was nothing to make his mind gay, or to lift his

thoughts from himself, and he returned to his ship sad and melancholy. He turned in to sleep, but he could not; he could merely lie and think on his mother and his beloved sister. He had not been in this situation, however, more than an hour, when he heard the watch upon deck hail a boat which was approaching the vessel, and presently the trampling of feet upon the planks above, told him that there were strangers coming on board. He was lying in thoughtful musings of what could cause this strange intrusion at such an hour of the night, when, all at once, he heard the shrill pipe of the boatswain, calling all hands to turn out: he started from his hammock, hurried on his clothes, and, on coming upon deck, heard that a vessel had been robbed by pirates in the morning at a short distance from the place where they were now lying; that the captain of the plundered ship had applied to the Admiral for as

sistance to recover his property, and that the Syren had been ordered off to pursue the outlaws, who were supposed to be sailing towards the island of Negropont, or the point of Cape Colonna; and that, after having done justice to the injured party, they were to proceed to Smyrna, and there rejoin the Admiral.

In the mean time the anchor was raised; but as there was little or no wind to fill the sails, the boats were ordered out, and a hawser being attached to the point of one of the ancient piers, the Syren was slowly warped out of the harbour of the Piræus. During the night she made scarcely any way, and at sunrise she was lying becalmed below the island of Egina. After breakfast, however, a slight breeze sprung up; they saw it coming, curling over the surface of the glossy sea, and as it approached, the sails began to rise from their folds, a gentle ripple gradually gathered at the prow, and at length the stately vessel

bent gracefully over the waters, and glided onwards at a rapid pace towards the promontory of Cape Colonna. They expected in a few hours to overtake the vessel of the pirates; a fight was likely to ensue, and Frank, as he kept a look-out ahead, felt his breast agitated with many and varying emotions.

CHAPTER XII.

A SEA-FIGHT-AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Now bursts the thunder of the ready gun,

Now sheets the lightning o'er the troubled sea, And wave on wave the smoke curls dark and dun, Shrouding the scene of death and destiny.

ROB. J. TENNENT.

ABOUT noon, all eyes were eagerly bent towards the direction in which the pirate-ship was expected to be descried, but no symptoms had as yet appeared to indicate her presence; till at last, a man at the mast-head announced a sail in the direction of the Island of Andros, but she was still so far ahead, that no por