bathed in
his blood, at my feet.

"Lift him!" I said, to the men who now crowded round. They did so, and
he unclosed his eyes, and glared upon me as the death-pang convulsed his
features, and gathered in foam to his lips. But his thoughts were not
upon his destroyer, nor upon the wrongs he had committed, nor upon any
solitary being in the linked society which he had injured.

"Order of Jesus," he muttered, "had I but lived three months longer,
I--"

So died Julian Montreuil.

CONCLUSION.

MONTREUIL was not the only victim in the brief combat of that night;
several of the pirates and their pursuers perished, and among the bodies
we found Gerald. He had been pierced, by a shot, through the brain,
and was perfectly lifeless when his body was discovered. By a sort of
retribution, it seems that my unhappy brother received his death-wound
from a shot, fired (probably at random) by Desmarais; and thus the
instrument of the fraud he had tacitly subscribed to became the minister
of his death. Nay, the retribution seemed even to extend to the very
method by which Desmarais had escaped; and, as the reader has perceived,
the subterranean communication which had been secretly reopened to
deceive my uncle made the path which had guided Gerald's murderer to the
scene which afterwards ensued. The delay of the officers had been owing
to private intelligence, previously received by the magistrate to whom
Gerald had applied, of the number and force of the pirates, and his
waiting in consequence for a military reinforcement to the party to be
despatched against them. Those of the pirates who escaped the conflict
escaped also the pursuit of the hostile vessel; they reached the islet,
and gained their captain's ship. A few shots between the two vessels
were idly exchanged, and the illicit adventurers reached the French
shore in safety. With them escaped Desmarais, and of him, from that hour
to this, I have heard nothing: so capriciously plays Time with villains!

Marie Oswald has lately taken unto himself a noted inn on the North
Road, a place eminently calculated for the display of his various
talents; he has also taken unto himself a WIFE, of whose tongue and
temper he has been known already to complain with no Socratic meekness;
and we may therefore opine that his misdeeds have not altogether escaped
their fitting share of condemnation.

Succeeding at once, by the death of my poor brother, to the DEVEREUX
estates, I am still