ies was safely
effected, and then the gentlemen were ordered to go. The husband of the
unhappy lady who had been so cruelly driven to suicide had been for some
time eagerly looking about for his wife, and, not seeing her, he at last
made inquiry of the other ladies as to her whereabouts. His grief, when
the dreadful news of her death was gradually broken to him with all that
gentleness of which a woman's tender, loving heart alone is capable, was
something pitiful to witness; he rushed into the saloon, and entering
the state-room in which the poor lady's inanimate body had been
reverently deposited by her companions in misfortune, flung himself upon
his knees by the side of the berth, and uttered alternately the wildest
prayers that heaven would pardon her act of desperation, and the
bitterest curses upon the heads of those who had driven her to it. It
was with the utmost difficulty that he was at last persuaded by Captain
Arnold to bid an eternal farewell to the beloved remains, and to join
the rest of the party in the boats allotted to them.

On hearing the order given for the gentlemen to pass down into the
boats, Walford mingled with the group and pressed quietly forward to the
gangway, having a vivid remembrance of Talbot's terrible threat, and not
caring to remind him of it by a too obtrusive exhibition of his anxiety
to escape. But in consequence of the still heavy run of the sea,
several of the mutineers--both Rogers and Talbot being among them--were
assisting at the transfer; and when Walford's turn came to pass down
over the side, he was summarily ordered back by the boatswain's mate,
who gruffly exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the quaking lieutenant--

"Here, you! stand back, will yer? Your turn ain't come yet."

Walford at once fell back, in a state of most painful trepidation, but
still hopeful that he would be allowed to go with the rest. When all
the passengers but himself, however, had passed down the side, the order
was given for them to cast off, which they at once did, ignorant or
forgetful of the fact that one of their number still remained behind.
Walford was about to rush to the gangway, and hail the fast receding
boat, when the ever-watchful Talbot caught him by the collar, and flung
him from him with an "Ah! would yer," and a kick which sent the
unfortunate officer sprawling upon the deck.

It was now the turn of the mutineers to take to the boats, and it was
not long before they stood i