The prisoner's hands were tied behind his back, and the captain, taking his arm, walked him off twelve steps, as coolly as if they were only pacing the quarter-deck. The captain then took a blanket, spread it on the ground and told Boseley to kneel on it, and he did so, facing his executioners. The ship's chaplain came and offered a prayer, after which the sergeant asked Boseley if he wished to have his eyes bandaged. "No; I am not afraid to face my executioners," he answered. It was an intensely solemn occasion, and among all those hardy, rough-mannered sailors, there was not one, unless it was Captain Snipes, who was not deeply affected. The captain's face was flushed, and his breath was strong with brandy, and he seemed but little moved. "Go ahead, and have this done with," he said to the officer in charge of the affair. "Are you quite ready now?" asked the sergeant. "Yes," was the answer in a faltering tone. "Make ready!" and the twelve glittering muskets were leveled at this sacrifice to the wrath of Captain Snipes. "Take aim!" and the gunners steadied themselves for the fatal word, to send a fellow being to eternity. "Fire!" and instantly flashed a volley, reverberating a wild and unearthly death knell among the crags that looked down upon that awful scene. In the clear morning air, the smoke of the guns curled up lazily and hung like a funeral pall over the mangled, bleeding form. Four bullets had pierced his body. He fell on his face and lay motionless for a few seconds. Then he began to slowly raise his head. Fernando came near and stood in front of him. Ten thousand years could not efface that scene from his mind. He continued to raise his head and body without a struggle. He looked the captain in the eye, and his mouth was in motion as though he were trying to speak,--to utter some dying accusation. Never did human eye behold a scene so pitiful as this dying man gazing on his destroyer, gasping to implore or to denounce him. In an instant a dimness came over his eyes, and he fell dead. "Oh, Heaven!" groaned Fernando, and he hurried away to the ship. For weeks, he saw that awful face every time he closed his eyes to sleep. Two years on board the British frigate had made Fernando, Sukey and Terrence tolerably fair sailors. Their hearts were never in the work, and they often dreamed of escape from this life of slavery. Fernando, by judicious attention to business, had never yet won the positive displeasure of the officers. One day the boatswain's mates repeated the commands at the hatchways: "All hands tack ship, ahoy!"