e last
twenty years is remembered, no one can be surprised to learn that Jack
was of little assistance to her husband in his extremity. Rose made an
effort to administer hope and consolation, but the terrible nature of
the struggle she witnessed, induced her to send for the chaplain of
the Poughkeepsie. This divine prayed with the dying man; but even he,
in the last moments of the sufferer, was little more than a passive
but shocked witness of remorse, suspended over the abyss of eternity
in hopeless dread. We shall not enter into the details of the
revolting scene, but simply add that curses, blasphemy, tremulous
cries for mercy, agonized entreaties to be advised, and sullen
defiance, were all strangely and fearfully blended. In the midst of
one of these revolting paroxysms Spike breathed his last. A few hours
later his body was interred in the sands of the shore. It may be well
to say in this place, that the hurricane of 1846, which is known to
have occurred only a few months later, swept off the frail covering
and that the body was washed away to leave its bones among the wrecks
and relics of the Florida Reef.

Mulford did not return from his fruitless expedition in quest of the
remains of Mrs. Budd, until after the death and interment of Spike. As
nothing remained to be done at Key West, he and Rose accompanied by
Jack Tier, took passage for Charleston in the first convenient vessel
that offered. Two days before they sailed, the Poughkeepsie went out
to cruise in the gulf, agreeably to her general orders. The evening
previously Capt. Mull, Wallace, and the chaplain, passed with the
bridegroom and bride, when the matter of the doubloons found in the
boat was discussed. It was agreed that Jack Tier should have them; and
into her hands the bag was now placed. On this occasion, to oblige the
officers, Jack went into a narrative of all she had seen and suffered,
from the moment when abandoned by her late husband down to that when
she found him again. It was a strange account, and one filled with
surprising adventures. In most of the vessels in which she had
served, Jack had acted in the steward's department, though she had
frequently done duty as a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she
admitted that she had often failed; but in courage, never. Having been
given reason to think her husband was reduced to serving in a vessel
of war, she had shipped on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean,
and had actually made a