Fernando started to his feet and said:
"We must go to their rescue."
At this Morgianna, who had been ministering to the wounded, entered and said:
"Are they not enemies?"
"Yes, but fellow-creatures, also. Those signal guns call out humanity, and the bravest are the most humane," said Fernando.
"I am glad you said that!" she remarked as Fernando hurriedly left the shelter in which the captain lay.
Day dawned and the Xenophon was a broken wreck scattered along the Maryland coast. Occasionally a bruised and bleeding form was picked up senseless or dead among the rocks, or on the beach. Sukey was busiest among the searchers; but the scenes of horror and suffering which everywhere met his view changed his hatred to pity.
At last he came upon a poor, bruised, thoroughly soaked, wretched-looking man lying among some rocks, where the angry waves and receding tide had left him. His once elegant uniform was now rotten, dirty rags. One gold epaulet was gone, and the other was so mud-besmeared that one could scarce tell what it was composed of.
[Illustration: SUKEY'S THUMB LIFTED THE HAMMER OF HIS GUN.]
It required a second look for Sukey to recognize in that miserable creature, drawing every breath in pain, the haughty Captain Snipes, who had scourged and disgraced him. Snipes had severe internal injuries and was dying. Sukey's thumb lifted the hammer of his gun, then he gazed on the agonized face of his enemy, and, the tears starting to his eyes, he let down the hammer. At this moment Fernando came up, and Sukey cried: