pered Bluewater.

"Name it not--name it not, my best friend. We all have our moments of
weakness, and our need of pardon. May God forget all _my_ sins, as
freely as I forget your errors!"

"God bless you, Oakes, and keep you the same simple-minded, true-hearted
man, you have ever been."

Sir Gervaise buried his face in the bed-clothes, and groaned.

"Kiss me, Oakes," murmured the rear-admiral.

In order to do this, the commander-in-chief rose from his knees and bent
over the body of his friend. As he raised himself from the cheek he had
saluted, a benignant smile gleamed on the face of the dying man, and he
ceased to breathe. Near half a minute followed, however, before the last
and most significant breath that is ever drawn from man, was given. The
remainder of that night Sir Gervaise Oakes passed in the chamber alone,
pacing the floor, recalling the many scenes of pleasure, danger, pain,
and triumph, through which he and the dead had passed in company. With
the return of light, he summoned the attendants, and retired to his
tent.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"And they came for the buried king that lay
At rest in that ancient fane;
For he must be armed on the battle day,
With them to deliver Spain!--
Then the march went sounding on,
And the Moors by noontide sun,
Were dust on Tolosa's plain."

MRS. HEMANS.

It remains only to give a rapid sketch of the fortunes of our principal
characters, and of the few incidents that are more immediately connected
with what has gone before. The death of Bluewater was announced to the
fleet, at sunrise, by hauling down his flag from the mizzen of the
Caesar. The vice-admiral's flag came down with it, and re-appeared at the
next minute at the fore of the Plantagenet. But the little white emblem
of rank never went aloft again in honour of the deceased. At noon, it
was spread over his coffin, on the main-deck of the ship, agreeably to
his own request; and more than once that day, did some rough old tar use
it, to wipe the tear from his eyes.

In the afternoon of the day after the death of one of our heroes, the
wind came round to the westward, and all the vessels lifted their
anchors, and proceeded to Plymouth. The crippled ships, by this time,
were in a state to carry more or less sail, and a stranger who had seen
the melancholy-looking line, as it rounded the Start, would have fancied
it a beaten fleet on its return to port. The only