was spread in
great black masses on the pillow, and her pale marble face reposed
there like an ivory picture in an ebony setting. Her eyes were wide
open, large and luminous, and her thin delicate hands were clasped
around a silver and pearl crucifix, which rested on her hollow breast. A
single taper in a silver lamp threw a lurid, flickering ray about the
room, and beside it was Babette on her knees quivering with terror,
while from one of the loopholed windows a broad white band of moonlight
streamed directly across the pillow and face of the dying girl."

Captain Brand's face assumed a deathly pallor, and, with his icy blue
eyes fixed on vacancy, and his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper, he went
on:

"As I appeared in the portals of the door, Lucia slowly raised her fore
finger, and beckoned me to approach. I could no more have resisted the
summons than if a chain cable to a frigate's anchor had caught me in its
iron coils, and was dragging me to the bottom of the sea. I moved to the
foot of the bed.

"'_Pirato!_' came from her slightly-parted lips, in her old low and
distinct tones. '_Pirato_, behold your cruel work! Destroyer of mother
and child--of soul and body--may the curses of a dying woman and her
unborn child haunt you by day and by night!' I was dumb, and my pulse
stopped beating.

"'_Ave Maria purissima!_' were the last words that came in a sweet, pure
whisper from her parted lips; she clasped the crucifix tighter, and the
spirit departed. I tore aside the gauze net to lay my hand on her heart,
when, on my soul! her right hand slowly relaxed its death-grasp on the
crucifix, and, rising to a vertical line, with the fore finger pointing
upward, quivered in the light of the waning moon, like, as it was, a
supernatural warning! Yes, that finger--"

[Illustration: "A SUPERNATURAL WARNING! YES, THAT FINGER--"]

"Mamma! mamma!" came in a weak, plaintive voice from the piazza, while
the villain, with his hands before him as if to shut out a frightful
vision, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, was hoarsely
whispering to his horror-stricken audience the last warning of the dead
Lucia.

As the low moaning cry in the stillness which reigned around the saloon
struck his ear, he sprang with a bound to his feet, and, quick as
thought, with a pistol in each hand, he shouted, "Who's there?"

"It is the little sick boy, _senor_. Do him no harm at your peril!" and
the doctor stood towering before the pirate's