"There shines old Roger de Blonay!" cried the baron, heartily; "he knows
of our being in the bark, and he has fired his beacon that we may steer by
its light."

The conjecture seemed probable, for, while the day remained, the castle of
Blonay, seated on the bosom of the mountain that shelters Vévey to the
north-east, had been plainly visible. It had been much admired, a pleasing
object in a view that was so richly studded with hamlets and castles, and
Adelheid had pointed it out to Sigismund as the immediate goal of her
journey. The lord of Blonay being apprized of the intended visit nothing
was more probable than that he, an old and tried friend of Melchior de
Willading's should show this sign of impatience; partly in compliment to
those whom he expected, and partly as a signal that might be really useful
to those who navigated the Leman, in a night that threatened so much murky
obscurity.

The Signor Grimaldi rightly deemed the circumstances grave, and, calling
to him his friend and Sigismund, he communicated the apprehensions of the
monk and Maso. A braver man than Melchior de Willading did not dwell in
all Switzerland, but he did not hear the gloomy predictions of the Genoese
without shaking in every limb.

"My poor enfeebled Adelheid!" he said, yielding to a father's tenderness:
"what will become of this frail plant, if exposed to a tempest in an
unsheltered bark?"

"She will be with her father, and with her father's friend," answered the
maiden herself; for the narrow limits to which they were necessarily
confined, and the sudden burst of feeling in the parent, which had
rendered him incautious in pitching his voice, made her the mistress of