The pirates own book : $b authentic narratives of the most celebrated sea robbersEllms, Charles
History
The pirates own book : $b authentic narratives of the most celebrated sea robbers
Ellms, Charles
Pirates
After the expiration of Ruiz' second respite, the Marshal got two
surgeons of the United States Navy, who understood the Spanish language,
to attend him in his cell; they, after a patient examination pronounced
his madness a counterfeit, and his insanity a hoax. Accordingly, on the
morning of Sept. 11th, the Marshal, in company with a Catholic priest
and interpreter entered his cell, and made him sensible that longer
evasion of the sentence of the law was impossible, and that he must
surely die. They informed him that he had but half an hour to live, and
retired; when he requested that he might not be disturbed during the
brief space that remained to him, and turning his back to the open
entrance to his cell, he unrolled some fragments of printed prayers, and
commenced reading them to himself. During this interval he neither
spoke, nor heeded those who were watching him; but undoubtedly suffered
extreme mental agony. At one minute he would drop his chin on his bosom,
and stand motionless; at another would press his brow to the wall of his
cell, or wave his body from side to side, as if wrung with unutterable
anguish. Suddenly, he would throw himself upon his knees on the
mattress, and prostrate himself as if in prayer; then throwing his
prayers from him, he would clutch his rug in his fingers, and like a
child try to double it up, or pick it to pieces. After snatching up his
rug and throwing it away again and again, he would suddenly resume his
prayers and erect posture, and stand mute, gazing through the aperture
that admitted the light of day for upwards of a minute. This scene of
imbecility and indecision, of horrible prostration of mind, ceasing in
some degree when the Catholic clergyman re-entered his cell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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