"True," said I, "they do, and also to many other crimes; but those crimes must first of all be proved before a court-martial. Now you cannot prove that I was deserting, and if you could, you had not the power to inflict death on me unless I was going towards the enemy. I own I was disobeying your orders, but even that would not have subjected me to more than a slight punishment, while your arbitrary act would have deprived the king, as I flatter myself, of a loyal, and not a useless subject; and if my body had not been found, no good could have accrued to the service from the severity of example. On the contrary, many would have supposed I had escaped, and been encouraged to make the same attempt." "I am very sorry now," said Talbot, "that I did not lower down a boat to send after you; however, it has been a comfort to me since to reflect that the marines missed you." This ended the subject: we walked the deck a little, talked of sweethearts, shaped the course for the night to make Fayal, which we were not far from, and then returned to our beds. Falling into a sound sleep, it was natural that the conversation of the evening should have dwelt on my mind, and a strange mixture of disjointed thoughts, a compound of reason and insanity, haunted me till the morning. Trinidad and Emily, the Nine-Pin Rock, and the mysterious Eugenia, with her supposed son; the sinking wreck, and the broken schooner, all appeared separately or together. "When nature rests, Oft, in her absence, mimic fancy wakes." I thought I saw Emily standing on the pinnacle of the Nine-Pin Rock, just as Lord Nelson is represented on the monument in Dublin, or Bonaparte in that of the Place Vendome; but with a grace as far superior to either, as the Nine-Pin Rock is in majesty and natural grandeur to those works of human art. Emily, I thought, was clad in complete mourning, but looking radiant in health and loveliness, although with a melancholy countenance. The dear image of my mistress seemed to say, "I shall never come down from this pinnacle without your assistance." "Then," thinks I, "you will never come down at all." Then I thought Eugenia was queen of Trinidad, and that it was she who had placed Emily out of my reach on the rock; and I was entreating her to let Emily come down, when Thompson tapped at my cabin door, and told me that it was daylight, and that they could see the island of Fayal in the north-east, distant about seven leagues.