They gently rolled the dead, or dying, man on to his back, and the nature of his injury appeared. He was clothed in white trousers, a light blue coat, and a shirt the front of which was ornamented by some light tracing like flowers. He was without a cravat, and his head was uncovered. The left side of his shirt was soaked in blood, and the singed hole through which the bullet had passed from the weapon whose muzzle he had pressed to his breast, was visible in the thick of the dark crimson dye. His face was marble-white. It wore an expression of torture. His lips were parted and grey. The eyelids were half-closed, and the whites of the eye only were visible. The Admiral stood looking as though petrified. All the wrath that was in him, all the fierce and terrible thoughts which had raged in his heart and prepared his tongue for a delivery desperate and fearful in the mouth of a father, melted, vanished, faded as smoke in the air, as a shred of mist torn from a cloud in the sky, and his face wore an expression of unutterable grief, of horror beyond expression in words, every passion and emotion it displayed being irradiated by the light of a father's love which had seemed to be waning and expiring in its socket, but which found life and power in that mute, irresistible prayer addressed to him as a father by an only son whose valour he had honoured, whose beauty he was proud of, whose life appealed to him more deeply in that his career had been halted by an act of folly when his reputation stood high for heroic daring. He went to the side of the body; he looked down upon the face with tearless eyes, and with that same dry sob in his throat which Captain Acton had heard when the poor old gentleman spoke after Mr Greyquill's visit, then sank upon his knees beside his son, muttering: "Walter, oh, Walter, that it should have come to this! I loved you, my son--may God pity me, and have mercy upon you!" Captain Acton, deeply affected by his friend's distress, concealed his face by turning his head. Mr Fellowes, who had grasped Mr Lawrence's wrist, cried out: "I feel a thread of pulse. He is not dead. I'll away for our medico, and shall be back with him in a jiffey." He ran out of the cabin. The Admiral pillowed his son's head with his arm, and gazed at the marble-still features. Never could any man appear more stricken, though 'tis hard to tell by posture or by expression of face the depth of human sorrow, the pang of the wound that death alone can heal. His only son--whom he had cursed for his wickedness--whose professional life, extinguished by an act of drunken madness, had swelled the eyes of the father with the unshed tears of the spirit of a man--lying dead or dying on his arm--self-slain! "Were you here when Mr Lawrence shot himself?" exclaimed Captain Acton to the hunchback Paul, who cowered in his corner with white cheeks and terrified looks.