face.

"Amen!" said the aged father, with a deep, heartfelt sigh, full of
sorrow.

This told the whole story of the previous night, and the last boat
that put off from, the shore for the clipper schooner contained
Komel as a prisoner, insensible to all about, abducted by her own
countrymen, incited by the revengeful spirit of Krometz. Actuated by
the vilest motives himself, he had persuaded a companion, as we have
seen, by a small bribe and the representation that Komel would in
reality be better off than with her parents, to aid him in his
object. Krometz had not hesitated to receive the handsome sum that
one so beautiful as Komel could not fail to command.

Aphiz was almost too miserable to be able to find words to express
his feelings. A bitter tear stole down his sunburnt check as he saw
the mother's grief, but a stern flash of the eye was also visible in
the expression of his face. He sought at once the highest cliff
beyond the cottage, and in the distant, far-off horizon, could dimly
make out the white canvas of the slave cutter, no bigger than a
sea-bird, on the skirts of the horizon. He sat down in the
bitterness of his anguish, alone and heart-broken, and then he
remembered the scene of the previous evening, how they both together
had seen the hawk pounce down and carry off in its talons the poor
wood dove.

That scene, so suggestive to his mind, was not without its meaning.
It was the forerunner of the calamity under which his heart now
grieved so bitterly. Aphiz Adegah's life had been a bold one, he