r? He prayed for
death. They were the first and last prayers that had fallen from his
lips for fifty years, those that day. Yet when death did come at last he
shrank from it with an increasing terror and horror that made all that
he had passed through seem like a trifle.

When old Hornigold had looked up he had seen a speck in the vaulted
heaven. It was slowly soaring around and around in vast circles, and
with each circle coming nearer and nearer to the ground. A pair of keen
and powerful eyes were aloft there piercing the distance, looking,
searching, in every direction, until at last their glance fell upon the
figure upon the rock. The circling stopped. There was a swift rush
through the air. A black feathered body passed between the buccaneer and
the sun, and a mighty vulture, hideous bird of the tropics, alighted on
the sands near by him.

[Illustration: Hell had no terror like to this, which he, living,
suffered.]

So this was the judgment of God upon this man! For a second his tortured
heart stopped its beating. He stared at the unclean thing, and then he
shrank back against the rock and screamed with frantic terror. The
bird moved heavily back a little distance and stopped, peering at him.
He could see it by turning his head. He could drive it no farther. In
another moment there was another rush through the air, another, another!
He screamed again. Still they came, until it seemed as if the earth and
the heavens were black with the horrible birds. High in the air they had
seen the first one swooping to the earth, and with unerring instinct, as
was their habit, had turned and made for the point from which the first
had dropped downward to the shore.

They circled themselves about him. They sat upon the rock above him.
They stared at him with their lustful, carrion, jeweled eyes out of their
loathsome, featherless, naked heads, drawing nearer--nearer--nearer.
He could do no more. His voice was gone. His strength was gone. He closed
his eyes, but the sight was still before him. His bleeding, foamy lips
mumbled one unavailing word:

"Hornigold!"

From the copse there came no sound, no answer. He sank forward in his
chains, his head upon his breast, convulsive shudders alone proclaiming
faltering life. Hell had no terror like to this which he, living,
suffered.

There was a weight upon his shoulder now fierce talons sank deep into
his quivering flesh. In front of his face, before a pair of lidless eyes
that