“Virgo! ’tis time to rise. See how the rosy morning dawns upon the room! Let me kiss you before you leave me: there! my soul is on my lips, and I drink in a better life from yours. Draw around the curtains. My face is on the pillow; I cannot see you, but my blessings follow you wherever you go. Ah! you leave the room, and all is strife and hate and passion within me.”
“He’s talking of that young creature that was so fond of him, don’t you see,” said the doctor; “though for my part I can’t comprehend what she could see in him to like.”
“There’s no knowing,” replied Oriel Porphyry; “the love of woman is a mystery which none properly understand and few appreciate.”
“She’s dead!” exclaimed the pirate in a heart-broken voice; “she’s dead! the innocent, the good, the gentle, the fearless, the confiding one, who would have plucked the rank weeds from my sinful nature, has perished and left me none like her in the world. She died for me—for me, a wretch unworthy to breathe in her presence. All is lost. There is no goodness now remaining on the earth. She’s dead! she’s dead!”
“I did not think he had so much natural feeling in him;” said the young merchant.
“There’s nothing so evil but what has some good in it, don’t you see;” replied the surgeon.
The expression in the features of Captain Death now underwent a complete change: it became fierce, daring, and revengeful. His body appeared violently agitated, and his arms moved with convulsive twitches.
“Pipe all hands to quarters!” shouted the dying pirate with all his remaining strength. “Make sail—clear away for fighting—run out the guns and shot them.—She’s a rich merchantman, and there’s enough in her to enrich us all. Pour out a broadside—there goes her main-mast:—another, and her mizenmast goes by the board. Sweep her quarter deck with our quarter deck guns, and pour down upon her a fire of musketry from the tops. Board her by the bow-sprit. Now, boys, follow me and cut down all.” Here the features of the dying pirate became absolutely terrific, and he made some desperate struggles to rise from the ground, in which he at last succeeded; when, waving his sword round his head, he sung in a piercing voice—
“We stifle ev’ry cry,
Ev’ry cry,—ev’ry cry—
We stifle ev’ry cry, Captain Death!
And then we spread our sails that are filled with welcome gales,
Singing, ‘Dead men tell no tales,’
Captain Death! Captain Death!
Singing, ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ Captain Death.”
“Ah!” screamed the singer, while an expression of the most intense agony distorted his features. He dropped the sword he had held; he drew both his hands suddenly to his wounded side, and staggering back, gasping frightfully for breath, he fell violently on his back.