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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
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