fied the
man of words: "I don't understand you, man; speak Spanish like others,
and I'll listen to you." When the dirk that belonged to Mr. Robertson,
the trunk and clothes taken from Mr. Gibson, and the pocket book
containing the ill-fated captain's handwriting were placed before him,
and proved to have been found in his room, and when the maid servant of
the tavern proved that she found the dirk under his pillow every morning
on arranging his bed; and when he was confronted with his own black
slave, between two wax lights, the countenance of the villain appeared
in its true nature, not depressed nor sorrowful, but vivid and
ferocious; and when the patient and dignified governor, Sir George Don,
passed the just sentence of the law upon him, he looked daggers at his
heart, and assumed a horrid silence, more eloquent than words.

The criminal persisted up to the day before his execution in asserting
his innocence, and inveighing against the injustice of his trial, but
the certainty of his fate, and the awful voice of religion, at length
subdued him. He made an unreserved confession of his guilt, and became
truly penitent; gave up to the keeper the blade of a razor which he had
secreted between the soles of his shoes for the acknowledged purpose of
adding suicide to his crimes, and seemed to wish for the moment that was
to send him before his Creator.

I witnessed his execution, and I believe there never was a more contrite
man than he appeared to be; yet there were no drivelling fears upon
him--he walked firmly at the tail of the fatal cart, gazing sometimes at
his coffin, sometimes at the crucifix which he held in his hand. The
symbol of divinity he frequently pressed to his lips, repeated the
prayers spoken in his ear by the attendant clergyman, and seemed
regardless of every thing but the world to come. The gallows was erected
beside the water, and fronting the neutral ground. He mounted the cart
as firmly as he had walked behind it, and held up his face to Heaven and
the beating rain, calm, resigned, but unshaken; and finding the halter
too high for his neck, he boldly stepped upon his coffin, and placed his
head in the noose, then watching the first turn of the wheels, he
murmured "_adios todos_," [Footnote: "Farewell, all."] and leaned
forward to facilitate his fall.

The black slave of the pirate stood upon the battery trembling before
his dying master to behold the awful termination of a series of events,
the