to render assistance to his less fortunate followers.  A fainter flash than before played upon the waters, and he beheld two or three dark masses, like the bodies of horses, hurried by among the waves, whilst another, of lesser bulk and human form, suddenly rose from the depth of the stream at his side.  This he instantly grasped in his hand, and dragged half across his saddle-bow, when a broken, strangling exclamation, “Lorra-g-g-gor!” made him aware that he had saved the life of the faithful Emperor.  “Clutch fast to the saddle,” he cried; and the negro obeying with another ejaculation, the soldier turned Briareus again down the stream, to look for the canoe.  But almost immediately his charger struck the ground; and Roland, to his inexpressible joy, found himself landed upon a projecting bank, on which the current had already swept the canoe, with its precious freight, unharmed.

“If that ar’n’t equal to coming down a strick of lightning,” cried Roaring Ralph, as he helped the soldier from the water, “thar’s no legs to a jumping bull-frog!  Smash away, old bait!” he continued, apostrophising with great exultation and self-admiration the river whose terrors he had thus so successfully defied; “ar’n’t I the gentleman for you?  Roar as much as you please;—­when it comes to fighting for anngelliferous madam, I can lick you, old Salt, ’tarnal death to me!  And so, anngelliferous madam, don’t you car’ a copper for the old crittur; for thar’s more in his bark than his bite.  And as for the abbregynes, if I’ve fout ’em enough for your satisfaction, we’ll just say good-bye to ’em, and leave ’em to take the scalp off old Salt.”

The consolation thus offered by the worthy captain of horse-thieves was lost upon Edith, who, locked in the arms of her kinsman, and sensible of her escape from the horrid danger that had so long surrounded her, sensible also of the peril from which he had just been released, wept her terrors away upon his breast, and for a moment almost forgot that her sufferings were not yet over.

It was only for an instant that the young soldier indulged his joy.  He breathed a few words of comfort and encouragement, and then turned to inquire after Dodge, whose gallant hearing in the hour of danger had conquered the disgust he at first felt at his cowardice, and won upon his gratitude and respect.  But the Yankee appeared not, and the loud calls Roland made for him were echoed only by the hoarse roar from the barriers, now left far behind, and the thunder that yet pealed through the sky.  Nor could Emperor, when restored a little to his wits, which had been greatly disturbed by his own perils in the river, give any satisfactory account of his fate.  He could only remember that the current had borne himself against the logs, under which he had been swept, and whirled he knew not whither until he found himself in the arms of his master; and Dodge, who had rushed before him into the flood, he supposed, had met a similar fate, but without the happy termination that marked his own.