I started and looked
at each other expressively--"ordered the ship to be scuttled, and for
all hands but those employed on the work to return to the brig. They
then left the cabin; and, about half an hour afterwards, I believe, they
left the ship. She cannot--float ver--very much--longer; but I shall--
shall be--gone before--"

His voice had been gradually growing weaker and weaker as he approached
the end of his narrative, and now failed altogether. I tore open the
front of his shirt to ascertain if his heart still beat, and now saw
that he had received, in addition to other wounds, a shot through the
chest.

There was no blood; but he no doubt bled internally. I could detect not
the faintest flutter of the heart, so we laid him gently down on the
sofa. As we did so, a small stream of blood trickled out of his mouth,
he sighed heavily, and his jaw dropped.

Seeing that he was dead, we left the cabin, and stepped out once more
into the bright sunshine. We noticed that, even during the short time
we had been on board, the vessel had settled considerably in the water.

It was evidently quite time we were off; but we first went all round the
deck, examining carefully each body, to see if any one exhibited the
least sign of life; but all were utterly beyond the reach of our help.
We accordingly cast _off_, and returned on board the _Water Lily_,
making all the sail we could, to get as speedily as possible away from
the scene of such diabolical atrocities.

We were about four miles distant from the ship, when we observed her
roll once or twice slowly and heavily; her stern rose, and, her bows
disappearing beneath the water, she gradually became almost
perpendicular, when she paused for a moment and then sank gently out of
sight.

The moment that Johnson's name was mentioned, the same idea flashed into
both our minds; that this was the same man, and probably the same ship,
of which we had so lately heard. The captain spoke of the pirate vessel
as a brig; and we felt no manner of doubt that she was the _Albatross_.

So, then, these men,--the men who had showed such base treachery to my
father,--were still at large, and in full prosecution of their
villainous designs. And not only so, but they were in the same quarter
of the globe as ourselves, and manifestly at no very great distance.

We felt no difficulty whatever now in attaching a very different and
much more sinister significance to the charred fragments