ce, it was so fearful--it was so hideous.
Bounding down the hill, in her night-dress, her long black hair
streaming like a meteor behind her, and her naked feet, usually so
exquisitely white, covered with blood, came Josephine, shrieking "Ralph,
Ralph!" Her voice seemed to stab my bosom like an actual knife. Behind
her came running her father, and a number of negro men and women.
Before she could reach me, they had flung me into the stern-sheets of
the boat.

"Shove off! shove off!" shouted the lieutenant; and the boat was
immediately in motion. Like a convicted felon, or a murderer taken in
the fact, I buried my craven head in my knees, and shut my eyes. I
would not have looked back for kingdoms. But I could not, or did not,
think of preventing myself from hearing. The boat had not pulled ten
yards from the beach, when I heard a splash behind us, and simultaneous
cries of horror from the boat's crew and those on shore; among which the
agonised voice of the heartbroken father rose shrilly, as he exclaimed,
"Josephine, my child!" I looked up for a moment, but dared not look
round; and I saw every man in the boat dashing away the tears from his
eyes with one hand, as he reluctantly pulled his oar with the other.

"Give way! give way!" roared the lieutenant, stamping violently against
the grating at his feet. "Give way! or, by God, she'll overtake us!"

The poor girl was swimming after me.

"Rattlin," said Selby, stooping down and whispering in my ear--"Rattlin,
I can't stand it; if it was not as much as my life was worth, I would
put you on shore directly." I could answer him only by a long
convulsive shudder. The horrible torment of those moments!

Then ascended the loud howling curses of the negroes behind us. The
seamen rose up upon their oars, and, with a few violent jerks, the
pinnace shot round the next point of land, and the poor struggler in the
waters was seen no more. Tidings never after came to me of her. I left
her struggling in the waters of the ocean. My first love, and my last--
my only one.

I was taken on board stupefied. I was led up the side like a sick man.
No one reproached me; no one spoke to me. I became physically, as well
as mentally, ill. I went to my hammock with a stern feeling of joy,
hoping soon to be lashed up in it, and find my grave in the deep blue
sea. At first, my only consolation was enacting over and over again all
the happy scenes with Josephine; but, as they