about
in fragments amid clothing, and books, and boxes; the cabin lamp and a
cabin compass, and stores of every sort, of which the lockers had been
rifled--chests and trunks lay open, despoiled of their contents, but no
human form, either alive or dead, was to be seen.

Mr Gale ordered the hands on deck to lift off the skylight. As the
bright sunshine came down into the cabin, the full horror of the scene
was exhibited. Among a mass of articles, such as I have enumerated,
which lay on the cabin table, were six human heads with ghastly grins,
holding pieces of meat in their mouths! They were placed at each side
of the table, and knives, and forks, and plates with food, were placed
before them! They had evidently thus been arranged in savage mockery by
their ruthless murderers, as they were about to leave the scene of their
atrocity. We searched about: no bodies were found. On one side of the
cabin there was a complete pool of blood, though part of it had been
lapped up by the bedclothes, which had been dragged from one of the
berths. The beds in the other state-rooms had been undisturbed.

Everything in the cabin showed us that the vessel was English; and this
was confirmed by opening the books, which were all in English. So, as
far as we could judge, were the countenances of the murdered people--I
will not say men; for on examining one of the heads, our horror was
increased by discovering that one of them was that of a woman--young and
beautiful she had been. Oh, what a scene of horror must her eyes last
have beheld; with what anguish must her heart last have beat! Even in
death the features of the murdered men wore various expressions. Horror
on one was clearly portrayed--desperate determination on that of
another--fierce rage showed itself on the face of another. So I
fancied; but, at all events, had I known any of the people, I think that
I should have recognised them. There were the same Anglo-Saxon features
common to all. The complexions of some were fair, and of others
sunburnt. There was one with a weather-beaten countenance, and large
bushy whiskers, whom we took to be one of the officers of the ship,
while most of the others had the smooth complexions of shore-going
people, and were probably those of passengers.

What we had already discovered plainly told the story of the
catastrophe. The brig had been surprised in the evening by some
piratical miscreants, while the captain and passengers, an