His voice had been gradually growing weaker and weaker as he approached the end of his narrative, and now failed altogether. I tore open the front of his shirt to ascertain if his heart still beat, and now saw that he had received, in addition to other wounds, a shot through the chest.
There was no blood; but he no doubt bled internally. I could detect not the faintest flutter of the heart, so we laid him gently down on the sofa. As we did so, a small stream of blood trickled out of his mouth, he sighed heavily, and his jaw dropped.
Seeing that he was dead, we left the cabin, and stepped out once more into the bright sunshine. We noticed that, even during the short time we had been on board, the vessel had settled considerably in the water.
It was evidently quite time we were off; but we first went all round the deck, examining carefully each body, to see if any one exhibited the least sign of life; but all were utterly beyond the reach of our help. We accordingly cast off, and returned on board the Water Lily, making all the sail we could, to get as speedily as possible away from the scene of such diabolical atrocities.
We were about four miles distant from the ship, when we observed her roll once or twice slowly and heavily; her stern rose, and, her bows disappearing beneath the water, she gradually became almost perpendicular, when she paused for a moment and then sank gently out of sight.
The moment that Johnson’s name was mentioned, the same idea flashed into both our minds; that this was the same man, and probably the same ship, of which we had so lately heard. The captain spoke of the pirate vessel as a brig; and we felt no manner of doubt that she was the Albatross.
So, then, these men,—the men who had showed such base treachery to my father,—were still at large, and in full prosecution of their villainous designs. And not only so, but they were in the same quarter of the globe as ourselves, and manifestly at no very great distance.
We felt no difficulty whatever now in attaching a very different and much more sinister significance to the charred fragments of wreck we had lately passed. Our little craft would of course be but a poor prize to these rascals; but since they seemed so to luxuriate in cruelty, it behoved us to give them as wide a berth as possible.
The presence of this craft, and that, too, in our immediate vicinity, was a source of the greatest anxiety to us; so much so, that we took in our gaff-topsail, and housed our topmast, to show but a low spread of canvas; and one or other of us remained posted at the mast-head all day, on the look-out, so as, if possible, to sight her before being seen ourselves, should it happen that we were both proceeding in the same direction, or on such courses as would bring us together.
We maintained this ceaseless watch for the pirate-brig for four days, when, judging from the experience we had already obtained of our sailing powers in fine weather as compared with those of other vessels that we had fallen in with, we came to the conclusion that all immediate danger of a rencontre with her was past; and we accordingly relaxed our vigilance, and allowed ourselves some rest, which, by this time, we greatly needed.