On seeing his zeal and devotion, Justin found time once to dart to his side and say:
“Heaven bless you for your noble example! I had done you injustice in the past! Forgive me now!”
“You did me no injustice, Mr. Rosenthal. I had given you too much reason by word and deed to think the worst of me. I was never so evil as I made myself out to be, however; though evil of late have been my days. Enough! that is past! And I am offering up my life in expiation now.”
He was indeed. He never shrank from duty or from danger. And, not ten minutes after these words had left his lips, a cannon ball from the enemy struck and cut him in two. And thus at last was his promise to his dying father grandly redeemed.
To return from this episode.
Lieutenant Ethel, on leaving Justin, ordered the forehold of the Xyphias to be prepared to receive the prisoners. Then he mustered his men under arms, passed over to the Sea Scourge, ordered the hatches to be taken off and the prisoners to come up on deck.
One hundred and nineteen men responded to the call, and were all marched to their place of confinement, with the exception of the officers, who were furnished quarters with the officers of the Xyphias.
As soon as the prisoners were secured, a portion of the ship’s company were set to putting the Xyphias in order. The decks were swabbed, the rigging righted, and all traces of the late conflict so effectually removed that she began again to look like one of our tidy men-of-war, and not like a cross between a shipwreck and a butcher’s shambles.
Lieutenant Ethel, with the surgeon and another portion of the crew, went over to the Sea Scourge to attend to her remaining wounded and to put her to rights.
The injured men on the upper deck having been already removed and relieved, the lieutenant and the surgeon passed at once to the lower deck, where a sight of horror met their eyes.