“It was certainly the loss of his sister which first unsettled the mind of Captain Ormond,” said Surrel. “Circumstanced as they were, there was something very dreadful in her death; it was so evidently occasioned by that unfortunate attachment, which had, I fancy, become uncontrollable, before they were made aware of their near relationship.” “Miss Ormond’s illness,” observed Julia, “Lady Oswald tells me, was decline, brought on by a broken heart. Did you know Captain Ormond?” “Oh, very well indeed!” replied Surrel; “I was his first lieutenant during all the extraordinary circumstances which preceded his death. You are aware that he died quite mad, poor fellow?” “So the papers said,” she replied. “When he first heard of the death of his sister,” continued Surrel, we were laying off the coast of * * * *; I was standing with him on the quarter-deck the morning he received the letter, which, we suppose, brought the intelligence. He did not open it, however, at the time, but ordered his boat and went ashore, where, after commanding the crew to wait for him on the beach, he wandered up the country among the woods, and was not heard of for several days. At length, when we were beginning to fear that some fatal accident must have befallen him, he came one morning on board in a shore-boat, and without noticing his prolonged absence, gave some common orders. For a time there was no visible change, except a more settled gloom of manner. Gradually, however, his looks assumed an alarming wildness, his orders became inconsistent and arbitrary, and from having been the mildest and a most indulgent of commanders, he became quite tyrant. On one occasion when I ventured to remonstrate in favour of a poor fellow whom, without the slightest reason, he had ordered to be flogged, he commanded the marines to fire on me, saying, that he would give me, while he walked the deck three times, to prepare myself. Fortunately, before he had twice walked the deck, he totally forgot the whole business, sat down on one of the cannonade slides, wrung his hands, and wept like a child! We all stole away unperceived. While we were at dinner, however, one of the youngsters ran down and told us that the captain was walking the deck, carrying a hanger in his hand, and looking very furious. While we were hesitating about what was best to be done, we heard a tremendous noise in the captain’s cabin, and hastening thither, found poor Ormond with scarcely any covering, and in the very act of flinging himself from the open window, from which he had just thrown both the clothes he had had on, and all else which was moveable. We were now obliged to use force. The resistance he made, poor fellow, was terrible. He was carried on shore, where, in a few days, he died raging mad!