“I have ... I have striven to do my duty,” murmured the old man, so faintly that his words were scarcely audible. “I have served my country ... she is a great empire ... a great empire ... and my heart is with old England, too;” forcing a smile, “we should know each other better, sir, and our prejudices would leave us, for .... for.... See! yonder is Charleston!” he suddenly exclaimed, his eyes kindling, and drawing his hand from Mrs. Tennent’s, to point with it into the infinite horizon. “Do you see that house on the left, there, with the green facing it? I was born there, sir. Observe the barberry-bushes with the red fruit on them--just there I fought my cousin, when we were boys ... he’s a senator now, and they tell me a good speaker. Oh, how the time goes!” he sighed wearily. “But there’s my wife ... she is holding the little one by the hand, and nodding to me to attend her.... A moment, Sarah, a moment! Gentlemen, farewell. I beg your kind word in my favour among your countrymen, whom I honour. I am a plain American gentleman--a general, gentlemen ... but tell them that my sword was never drawn from its scabbard for any cause but a good one, and ... Ah, farewell! You see, gentlemen, my wife awaits me, and the little one beckons.” He made a gesture as though he would bow; his venerable and honoured head sank upon his bosom; then he started, looked about him with a glazing eye, and smiling sweetly, whispered, “Sarah, I am coming,” lay back and spoke no more. When, after long watching him, they knew that he was dead, they covered him over with the sail, meaning to commit him to the sea when the widow should be asleep. Holdsworth was so greatly overcome that for many minutes he could not raise his head nor speak. The widow, with her eyes fixed on the water, sat motionless, a fixed image of despair. Her boy crept about the bottom of the boat at her feet, with somewhat weakly movements, though his body had not yet suffered enough to kill the infancy in his mind. The sailors, made selfish by the bitter disappointment of the morning, talked of their chances of rescue, and discussed the subject of the burning ship. Johnson probably solved the mystery of the deserted vessel when he suggested that during the night the hands had found the cargo on fire--and he judged by the blaze she made, and the smoke, and the long time she was smouldering, that she was freighted with cotton or coal--and had battened down the hatches; but not having the means of getting the fire under, they struck and took to the boats, obliging the skipper to go along with them, and left the vessel to her fate. Just such another case happened to a messmate of his in the Bay of Biscay. The crew left their ship smouldering under battened hatches. But _she_ was boarded by a Frenchman, who smothered the fire and towed her into Bordeaux. “Where was the brigantine’s crew, now?” Winyard wondered. “I wish we could fall in with them, if only for company’s sake,” replied Johnson.