COMMITTED TO THE DEEP.
The _Diaria de Valparaiso_, _El Mercurio del Vapor_, and other
papers, but chiefly documents of a private nature belonging to the
late Don Salvador de Moreno (for the poor man did not long survive
that terrible 8th of December), have assisted us in the compilation
of the foregoing narrative of the two brothers, which forms a
singular sequel to their father's secret history; but until the fact
fell from the baked and faltering lips of Pedro Barradas, in no way
were Morley Ashton, Bartelot, Heriot, and others who listened,
prepared to hear that he was concerned in bringing about a
catastrophe so terrible as that which closes our preceding chapter.
"So that was the great crime of Pedro--the awful deed which he has so
frequently referred to in his ravings," said Morley.
"An awful deed truly," added Captain Phillips. "Who would live, even
if he could, haunted by such memories? A precious logbook of crime
his life presents?"
Death, however, came on Pedro fast. One of his last acts was to
examine his wretched pallet for the watch and ring which, as detailed
in a previous chapter, he had forcibly taken from Hawkshaw.
His half-fatuous intention was now, probably, to bestow them on some
one; but a groan of pity and disgust escaped him on finding that one
of his worthless compatriots had already abstracted them, and now,
perhaps, would gladly give them both for one drop of water to cool
his parched tongue in the drifting quarter-boat.
"The past, the past!" he moaned; "_misericordia! misericordia_! My
life--my lost life! Oh! that with my present bitter experience I
could live it over once again--even a year of it--how different it
should be! How many have been misspent, frittered away and
blackened? Oh! for a month--a week--to repent. One day--mother of
God--only one day; but it may not be--cannot be! Oh that I might
warn Zuares, ere it be too late also for him--no absolution, no hope."
As the life of Pedro ebbed--easily, however, complete mortification
having set in--and his senses passed away, he muttered something
again and again; and Morley, who was in the forecastle, held the lamp
near--for night had come on--and stooped over him to listen.
He was delirious as well as dying, and his husky and broken ravings
were of the cathedral church of Orizaba, and he averred that he saw
at the foot of his bed, in that wretched forecastle bunk, the figure
of a woman.
"A figure--what is it like?" asked Morley, glancing round in spite of
himself.
"A woman enshrined in light. She is clad in blue, with thirteen
stars around her head. _Ave Maria purissima! Ave Maria purissima!_"
he cried, and, sinking back, closed his eyes, overcome by weakness
and excitement.
It was the image so revered in his innocent childhood, when he and
Zuares prayed at their mother's knee; and with this shadow before his
visionary eye--the same figure that in dreams had hung over his
cradle in infancy--the feet of which he and Zuares had been taught to
kiss--the same image, with an aureole of light around its placid
face, the Madonna of Orizaba, with her feet resting on the sharp,
pale crescent moon, before his glazing eyes, whose last expression
was fear and ecstasy--the soul of this inscrutable ruffian passed
away!
Then Morley Ashton, who was the last lonely watcher, hastened on deck
to report that all was over.
This perpetrator of so many crimes was dead! Ferocity, avarice,
cruelty, insatiate lust, unavailing remorse, and all the stormy
passions which had, in turn, convulsed that lawless heart, that dark
and sombre visage, were gone now. The man was dead and gone--gone as
if he had never been!
Before the ship's bell had clanged the last half hour of the morning
watch, Noah and Morrison had rolled his body up in the blankets in
which he died, and had lashed a couple of shot in a canvas-bag to his
ankles.
Then they laid him on a grating to leeward, anxious to have the last
rites over before the young ladies came on deck.
The red enamelled cross of San Jago, which Morley had brought from
the hermit's cell, was tied up with him; indeed, it was found
impossible to take it from his hand, in which it was tightly clenched.
There was mental relief to all on board when the burial of Pedro--the
last act of a long and gloomy drama--was over, and when his tall and
muscular form--herculean and ghastly it looked, rolled up in
blankets, and lashed round with spunyarn--went surging, feet
foremost, through the white foam, vanishing for ever, in the deep
green sea to leeward, while the ship, as if lightened of a load, flew
through the shining waves of the Mozambique.
This was on a Saturday, about 8 A.M., when the golden sun shone in
all its beauty on the fresh, cool morning sea.
Ethel could never think of Pedro without a cold shudder, and often
said, "Thus is sin its own punishment;" but Rose, her terror past,
had imbibed almost a sentimental pity or sympathy for the dead
ruffian, who figured so largely in the diary before mentioned, which
was now resumed for the benefit of her old gossip and companion, Lucy
Page, at Acton-Rennel.
Captain Phillips, however, took a very different view of the matter,
and so much had his naturally kind character been soured or warped by
recent events, that he could scarcely be prevailed upon to read the
burial service over the defunct mutineer; and thus he cut it pretty
short, upon the plea that a rough day was before them, that he had
few hands, and wished to take in a reef in each of the courses; so
never were those words--so solemn and so awful--under the usual
circumstances "we thus commit his body to the deep," so irreverently
uttered, and yet, worthy old Jack Phillips is the kindest of all good
fellows.
The Saturday night came on, calm, clear, and starry, the south-west
monsoon blew fresh and steadily, and as close-hauled as a
square-rigged craft could be, the _Hermione_ was making a long tack
towards the southern point of Madagascar. Fortunately, nothing had
been seen yet of the three red proas, of which such earnest warning
had been given by the officer of Her Majesty's corvette the _Clyde_.
The cheerful glass went round to "sweethearts and wives," and to "all
ships at sea." To these weekly toasts, Captain Phillips added a
special glass of stiff grog, in honour of his airy friend, "the clerk
of the weather," whom Rose, who was writing, supposed to be the late
Admiral Fitzroy. Ethel was occupying herself with crochet, Mr.
Basset was asleep, and Morley was at the wheel on deck, and already
it seemed that Pedro Barradas and the particulars of his terrible
history were forgotten. So--
"The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies,
The dew dries up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot."