"They were ready enough to share my booty!--good friends in health, but at need where are they? False dogs! vile deceivers!--they leave me, their captain, to perish like a brute beast! Bill! Pedro!--some one of you--dogs, ingrates!--for the love of God a glass of water!" The last part of the sentence was shouted. "They hear me not--they care not for me!--but no, I wrong them," he said, as the curtain which divided his cave from the larger was pushed aside, and an Italian maiden entered. She was very young, and singularly interesting-looking in face; her beauty, of a high order, was as yet imperfectly developed; her eyes large, dark, and piercing. She approached the dying man with noiseless tread; then in her soft tongue asked if he wanted anything. "Yes, child, water--water!--for God's sake! I am parched." The maiden poured out a silver goblet-ful from the glass vessel, and brought it to the sufferer; he seized it as if it had been for his life, and eagerly drained it. "Thanks; it is long since I tasted water, signorina, but I never before drank wine with such gusto,--egad, it was nectar!" "Take some grapes, Capitano," said the girl, offering him a bunch; "they will cool your tongue. Are you better?--easier from pain?" "Ay, better now," exclaimed the Captain, receiving the fruit. "Now tell Bill Stacy I want him:--why does he shrink from the sight of death?" "He shrinks not from death, but has gone to bring you a priest," said the girl. "The Virgin grant you may yet live!" She then as noiselessly departed, and once more left the dying man to his own reflections. His thoughts were far from enviable; he felt perhaps remorse--for it was not repentance nor grief--for his crimes; and as he recalled them all, the long dark catalogue seemed endless,--terrific! Deeds of rapine and murder long forgotten revived like adders, and stung him once more;--but it was the agony of lost despair--the echoes of horrid crimes! From these thoughts he was roused by the entrance of Bill Stacy, and with him a Roman Catholic priest. "Ha! Bill! you are come at last. Egad! I thought you had clean forgotten a wounded mate. But who the devil have you got there? Where did you pick up yon shaveling?--and why bring you accursed priests to my bed?" "Your cable is nigh run out; I thought you would like a chaplain mayhap, and brought this fellow along--for I had hard work to prevail on the cussed fool to venture his head here;--but here he is; and he knows a yarn o' long prayers!" "My son," said the priest, looking heavenwards as he crossed himself, "look on this blessed sign, and ere life takes wing, ask the bless--" But he was cut short by the Captain. "Cease your drivelling--idiotical nonsense, or preach to others who believe your fables. Egad, you think me dying, but I'll come it yet. Away, old dotard!" "Blaspheme not, my son; think upon the blessed Virgin; think on him who forgave the dying thief."