CHAPTER XVIII.

COMMITTED TO THE DEEP.

The _Diaria de Valparaiso_, _El Mercurio del Vapor_, and other papers, but chiefly documents of a private nature belonging to the late Don Salvador de Moreno (for the poor man did not long survive that terrible 8th of December), have assisted us in the compilation of the foregoing narrative of the two brothers, which forms a singular sequel to their father's secret history; but until the fact fell from the baked and faltering lips of Pedro Barradas, in no way were Morley Ashton, Bartelot, Heriot, and others who listened, prepared to hear that he was concerned in bringing about a catastrophe so terrible as that which closes our preceding chapter.

"So that was the great crime of Pedro--the awful deed which he has so frequently referred to in his ravings," said Morley.

"An awful deed truly," added Captain Phillips. "Who would live, even if he could, haunted by such memories? A precious logbook of crime his life presents?"

Death, however, came on Pedro fast. One of his last acts was to examine his wretched pallet for the watch and ring which, as detailed in a previous chapter, he had forcibly taken from Hawkshaw.

His half-fatuous intention was now, probably, to bestow them on some one; but a groan of pity and disgust escaped him on finding that one of his worthless compatriots had already abstracted them, and now, perhaps, would gladly give them both for one drop of water to cool his parched tongue in the drifting quarter-boat.

"The past, the past!" he moaned; "_misericordia! misericordia_! My life--my lost life! Oh! that with my present bitter experience I could live it over once again--even a year of it--how different it should be! How many have been misspent, frittered away and blackened? Oh! for a month--a week--to repent. One day--mother of God--only one day; but it may not be--cannot be! Oh that I might warn Zuares, ere it be too late also for him--no absolution, no hope."

As the life of Pedro ebbed--easily, however, complete mortification having set in--and his senses passed away, he muttered something again and again; and Morley, who was in the forecastle, held the lamp near--for night had come on--and stooped over him to listen.

He was delirious as well as dying, and his husky and broken ravings were of the cathedral church of Orizaba, and he averred that he saw at the foot of his bed, in that wretched forecastle bunk, the figure of a woman.

"A figure--what is it like?" asked Morley, glancing round in spite of himself.

"A woman enshrined in light. She is clad in blue, with thirteen stars around her head. _Ave Maria purissima! Ave Maria purissima!_" he cried, and, sinking back, closed his eyes, overcome by weakness and excitement.

It was the image so revered in his innocent childhood, when he and Zuares prayed at their mother's knee; and with this shadow before his visionary eye--the same figure that in dreams had hung over his cradle in infancy--the feet of which he and Zuares had been taught to kiss--the same image, with an aureole of light around its placid face, the Madonna of Orizaba, with her feet resting on the sharp, pale crescent moon, before his glazing eyes, whose last expression was fear and ecstasy--the soul of this inscrutable ruffian passed away!

Then Morley Ashton, who was the last lonely watcher, hastened on deck to report that all was over.

This perpetrator of so many crimes was dead! Ferocity, avarice, cruelty, insatiate lust, unavailing remorse, and all the stormy passions which had, in turn, convulsed that lawless heart, that dark and sombre visage, were gone now. The man was dead and gone--gone as if he had never been!

Before the ship's bell had clanged the last half hour of the morning watch, Noah and Morrison had rolled his body up in the blankets in which he died, and had lashed a couple of shot in a canvas-bag to his ankles.

Then they laid him on a grating to leeward, anxious to have the last rites over before the young ladies came on deck.

The red enamelled cross of San Jago, which Morley had brought from the hermit's cell, was tied up with him; indeed, it was found impossible to take it from his hand, in which it was tightly clenched.

There was mental relief to all on board when the burial of Pedro--the last act of a long and gloomy drama--was over, and when his tall and muscular form--herculean and ghastly it looked, rolled up in blankets, and lashed round with spunyarn--went surging, feet foremost, through the white foam, vanishing for ever, in the deep green sea to leeward, while the ship, as if lightened of a load, flew through the shining waves of the Mozambique.

This was on a Saturday, about 8 A.M., when the golden sun shone in all its beauty on the fresh, cool morning sea.

Ethel could never think of Pedro without a cold shudder, and often said, "Thus is sin its own punishment;" but Rose, her terror past, had imbibed almost a sentimental pity or sympathy for the dead ruffian, who figured so largely in the diary before mentioned, which was now resumed for the benefit of her old gossip and companion, Lucy Page, at Acton-Rennel.

Captain Phillips, however, took a very different view of the matter, and so much had his naturally kind character been soured or warped by recent events, that he could scarcely be prevailed upon to read the burial service over the defunct mutineer; and thus he cut it pretty short, upon the plea that a rough day was before them, that he had few hands, and wished to take in a reef in each of the courses; so never were those words--so solemn and so awful--under the usual circumstances "we thus commit his body to the deep," so irreverently uttered, and yet, worthy old Jack Phillips is the kindest of all good fellows.

The Saturday night came on, calm, clear, and starry, the south-west monsoon blew fresh and steadily, and as close-hauled as a square-rigged craft could be, the _Hermione_ was making a long tack towards the southern point of Madagascar. Fortunately, nothing had been seen yet of the three red proas, of which such earnest warning had been given by the officer of Her Majesty's corvette the _Clyde_.

The cheerful glass went round to "sweethearts and wives," and to "all ships at sea." To these weekly toasts, Captain Phillips added a special glass of stiff grog, in honour of his airy friend, "the clerk of the weather," whom Rose, who was writing, supposed to be the late Admiral Fitzroy. Ethel was occupying herself with crochet, Mr. Basset was asleep, and Morley was at the wheel on deck, and already it seemed that Pedro Barradas and the particulars of his terrible history were forgotten. So--

"The wind blows out, the bubble dies, The spring entombed in autumn lies, The dew dries up, the star is shot, The flight is past, and man forgot."