“Hope, with her prizes and victories won,
Shines in the blue of my morning sun,
Conquering hope with golden ray,
Blessing my landscape far away.”
Tupper.
Not a single prisoner was taken.
Those who were not fatally wounded had sprung overboard.
The rest of the night passed in quietness, but when day broke, the sun shone on a sad and ghastly scene. There still lay about broken cutlasses, spears, torn pieces of cloth, and all the débris of fight, and blood, blood everywhere.
On one side of the deck, with upturned faces, lay in ghastly array the dead of the enemy, on the other our own poor fellows had been put, and carefully covered with flags.
All hands were summoned to prayers, to bury the dead and clear up decks.
When, after service, the commander and his officers—alas! among those who lay beneath the Union Jack were one or two officers—went round to view the bodies, to their astonishment, they found that Zareppa had gone.
He had only shammed death, then, in order to escape!