upon
shrieking, and clashing, and fainting away.

"What followed Benita knew not, as one might well suppose, herself being
stunned by a blow on the head, beside being palsied with terror. 'See,
I have the mark now,' she said, 'where the jamb of the door came down on
me!' But when she recovered her senses, she found herself lying upon
the sand, the robbers were out of sight, and one of the serving-men was
bathing her forehead with sea water. For this she rated him well, having
taken already too much of that article; and then she arose and ran to
her mistress, who was sitting upright on a little rock, with her dead
boy's face to her bosom, sometimes gazing upon him, and sometimes
questing round for the other one.

"Although there were torches and links around, and she looked at her
child by the light of them, no one dared to approach the lady, or speak,
or try to help her. Each man whispered his fellow to go, but each hung
back himself, and muttered that it was too awful to meddle with. And
there she would have sat all night, with the fine little fellow stone
dead in her arms, and her tearless eyes dwelling upon him, and her heart
but not her mind thinking, only that the Italian women stole up softly
to her side, and whispered, 'It is the will of God.'

"'So it always seems to be,' were all the words the mother answered;
and then she fell on Benita's neck; and the men were ashamed to be near
her weeping; and a sailor lay down and bellowed. Surely these men are
the best.

"Before the light of the morning came along the tide to Watchett my Lady
had met her husband. They took her into the town that night, but not
to her own castle; and so the power of womanhood (which is itself
maternity) came over swiftly upon her. The lady, whom all people
loved (though at certain times particular), lies in Watchett little
churchyard, with son and heir at her right hand, and a little babe, of
sex unknown, sleeping on her bosom.

"This is a miserable tale," said Jeremy Stickles brightly; "hand me
over the schnapps, my boy. What fools we are to spoil our eyes for other
people's troubles! Enough of our own to keep them clean, although we
all were chimney-sweeps. There is nothing like good hollands, when a
man becomes too sensitive. Restore the action of the glands; that is
my rule, after weeping. Let me make you another, John. You are quite
low-spirited."

But although Master Jeremy carried on so (as became his manhood), and
laughed a