Languages & literature > Athenaeum

146
THE ATHENiEUM.
to be heard, a gun, fired by an alarmed sentinel on the
rock of Dumbarton, flashed vividly on the eye, and
by its sound recalled for a moment to the hearts of the
sinking victims, that hope which was on the point of
being extinguished for ever. A shriek, loud, shrill,
and full of agony, simultaneously rose from the sur¬
vivors ; but their souls passed away with the effort!
for when the soldier almost immediately thereafter re¬
peated his signal, it drew from them no farther re¬
sponse. The waters had closed over them; and the si¬
lence of night remained unbroken, save by the hollow
murmurs of the unconscious waves.
Lights were now beginning to be struck in different
parts of the castle, and noises were heard within it,
which told that the garrison were roused, and about to
adopt measures for ascertaining the cause of alarm.
Corresponding lights, indicating a like origin and object,
also began to gleam forth from various points along
the opposite shore; and as these appearances proved
that a search would soon commence in the vicinity of
their station, the fisherman and his spouse, aware that
explanation might, under present circumstances, be
difficult, deemed it prudent now to retire, and endea¬
vour to reach home without discovery. Aided by the
darkness, they succeeded: and presenting themselves
next morning before the authorities of Dumbarton,
they detailed the whole particulars of the previous
night’s catastrophe, and were rewarded in proportion
to the importance of an act of retribution, which led
to the immediate discontinuance of those nocturnal
raids, by which both the town and adjacent country
had for many past years been intolerably harassed.