"I know it, father," answered the old man, his voice trembling with emotion, for his sensations were too powerful, too sublime, even, for the degrading passion of fear--"but never before did this fair piece of the creation seem so lovely in my eyes as now, when I am about to quit it for the last time." "Look beyond this scene, into the long vista of eternity, son; there thou wilt behold that which mocks at all human, all earthly means. I fear that our time is but short--hast thou aught yet to say in the flesh?" "Let it be known, holy priest, that in my dying moment I prayed for Nelson, and for all who have been active in bringing me to this end. It is easy for the fortunate and the untempted to condemn; but he is wiser, as he is safer, who puts more reliance on the goodness of God than on his own merits." A ray of satisfaction gleamed athwart the pale countenance of the priest--a sincerely pious man, or fear of personal consequences might have kept him aloof from such a scene--and he closed his eyes while he expressed his gratitude to God in the secret recesses of his own spirit. Then he turned to the prince and spoke cheeringly. "Son," he said, "if thou quittest life with a due dependence on the Son of God, and in this temper toward thy fellow-creatures, of all this living throng thou art he who is most to be envied! Address thy soul in prayer once more to Him who thou feelest can alone serve thee." Caraccioli, aided by the priest, knelt on the scaffold; for the rope hung loose enough to permit that act of humiliation, and the other bent at his side. "I wish to God Nelson had nothing to do with this!" muttered Cuffe, as he turned away his face, inadvertently bending his eyes on the Foudroyant, nearly under the stern of which ship his gig lay. There, in the stern-walk, stood the lady, already mentioned in this chapter, a keen spectator of the awful scene. No one but a maid was near her, however; the men of her companionship not being of moods stern enough to be at her side. Cuffe turned away from this sight in still stronger disgust; and just at that moment a common cry arose from the boats. Looking round, he was just in time to see the unfortunate Caraccioli dragged from his knees by the neck, until he rose, by a steady man-of-war pull, to the end of the yard; leaving his companion alone on the scaffold, lost in prayer. There was a horrible minute of the struggles between life and death, when the body, so late the tenement of an immortal spirit, hung, like one of the jewel-blocks of the ship, dangling passively at the end of the spar, as insensible as the wood which sustained it. CHAPTER XV. "Sleep, sleep, thou sad one, on the sea; The wash of waters lulls thee now; His arm no more will pillow thee, Thy hand upon his brow; He is not near, to hurt thee, or to save: The ground is his--the sea must be thy grave." DANA.