none to save
Him, bent an oar. Her brain burnt like a coal.
She cried: "O let me go and plunge in yon dark sea!"

Weeks passed and still she only moaned and raved.
Nor slept by night or day.
One voice alone
At last was found the fever's course to stay;
'Twas when she heard her faithful Eric's tone,
When he in hot haste came and instant audience craved.

The Demon Wrecker.

If grief had wrung Sir Guy's stern heart that night,
He stood among his dead;
'Twixt grief and ire,
He now a maniac grew. Sleep from him fled;
He passed the night with warders round their fire,
While every turret-room was all ablaze with light.

Days, weeks, and months thus passed, but still,
No sign Rowena gave.
She's dead, he thought;
Yon yawning sea no doubt conceals her grave.
And then his rage a direful vengeance wrought,
For him whose steadfast love had made her thwart his will.

No turret lights now burned at night, save one,
And that a feeble speck,
Straight o'er Hell Rock.
On this a noble ship, one night, became a wreck;
The cliffs resounded with the awful shock—
The Demon-Wrecker thought too well his work was done!

Old Ragnor's Dungeons Grim.

Hewn out of solid rock, some fathoms deep
Old Ragnor's dungeons lay.
A massive chain
Which two men scarce could move a foot away,
Joined door above to door below. Its strain
Upon the stone-cut stairs still makes the flesh to creep.

Here faithful Eric found himself immured
To try if gloom and fear
Of tortures dire
Could wring from him a secret held more dear
Than life itself. Nay! Famine, rack, and fire,
Swift death or tortures slow—all, all should be endured

For his dear lady's sake. Though but a page
He'd learn to value truth
In word and deed
From her whose noble love inspired his youth
And taught him lessons from her living creed.
Her foe had thrown the glove he dared take up the gage.

Eric Entombed.

Entombed alive! A struggling streak of light
Made visible the gloom,—
His living shroud.
He felt himself alive yet without room
To live or breathe. He groaned, then cried aloud,
"O God, while in this porch of hell, be Thou my light!"

Next morn—if morn, it were—no count of hours,
The dungeon-tenant kept,—
A silver ray
Woke hope afresh, as down a cord there crept
A basket full of meats, while 'neath them lay
A lamp and tools, with hints where he might try their powers.

Henceforth work's pulses guaged his night and day,
As sandstone rock he bored.
His ear supplied,
By sound of sea, how much his axe had gored,
As clearer came the welcome rush of tide.
Hope made his feeble lamp effulgent as sun's ray!

The Rift in Hell Gate.

The first hole pierced, his head grew sick and faint.
To pray he tried; no word
Escaped his lips.
Yet sure he felt his spirit's groanings heard,
As prone he lay and gasped the air by sips;
For that he'd breathed so long, was foul with dead men's taint.

His strength now grew with every stroke he plied.
At sound of sea and men,
Death's clammy sweat
Was changed for drops that told of health again,
While through his languid frame life's current swept,
It only made him feel how nearly he had died.

At last his living tomb of rock was rent;
Though but a narrow rift
He yet had made
Enough; it did a horrid monster lift,
That clutched him close and held aloft a blade;
He felt himself undone, when, lo! God had deliv'rance sent.

The Crucified One.

So wildly beat his heart and throbbed his veins,
As morn's first struggling gleam.
His rift net caught,
He e'en must follow its meandering beam,
Till something on the walls his footsteps brought
To rest. He shuddered as he saw the death-throe stains

Of some whose hands and ankles, staple-bound,
Had graved thereon the sign
Of crucified.
"My God!" he cried, "such fate may yet be mine!"
He turned and lo! close at his feet he spied
A note. A piercing wail then woke the echoes round.

"To-morrow, Eric, will decide your fate.
Confess and you are free;
Else will you die
A death of torture, marks of which you'll see
Upon the walls around. Fly, Eric, fly,
This night, this very night, or it will be too late!"

Eric Faithful Unto Death.

When Eric woke to thought, the light had flown,
With Hope upon its wing
And left Despair.
One thought alone could light and comfort bring—
His secret—This, not death should from him tear.
Rowena's safe retreat, he never would make known!

The rasp of grating chains and rush of air
Awoke the sleeping page
From frightful dreams.
A voice he heard. Alas! 'twas fierce with rage,
While on his sight there flashed the fitful gleams
Of warders' arms. In haste they clangour down the stair.

"Come