happy Jeanie Mackie, but happiest of all appeared the
general himself. For now she might be his daughter indeed, sweet Emmy
Tracy still, dear Charles's loving wife. And he blessed them as they
knelt, and gave them to each other; well-rewarded children of affection,
who had prayed in their distress!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY.

There is a muddy sort of sand-bank, acting as a delta to the Mullet,
just where it spreads from deep to shallow, and falls into the sea.
Strange wild fowl abound there, coming from the upper clouds in flocks;
and at high water, very little else but rushes can be seen, to testify
its sub-marine existence.

A knot of fishermen, idling on the beach, have noticed an uncommon
flight of Royston crows gathered at the island, with the object, as it
would appear, of battening on a dead porpoise, or some such body, just
discernible among the rushes. Stop--that black heap may be kegs of
whiskey;--where's the glass?

Every one looked: it warn't barrels--and it warn't a porpoise: what was
it, then? they had universally nothing on earth to do, so they pushed
off in company to see.

I watched the party off, and they poked among the rushes, and heaved out
what seemed to me a seal: so I ran down to the beach to look at the
strange creature they had captured. Something wrapped in a sail; no
doubt for exhibition at per head.

But they brought out that black burden solemnly, laying it on the beach
at Burleigh: a crowd quickly collected round them, that I could not see
the creature: and some ran for a magistrate, and some for a parson. Then
men in office came--made a way through the crowd, and I got near: so
near, that my foolish curiosity lifted up the sail, and I beheld--what
had been Julian.

O, sickening sight: for all which the pistol had spared of that swart
and hairy face, had been preyed upon by birds and fishes!

There was a hurried inquest: the poor general and Emily deposed to what
they knew, and the rustics, who escorted him from Oxton. The verdict
could be only one--self-murder.

So, by night, on that same swampy island, when the tide was low, they
buried him, deeply staked into the soil, lest the waves should disinter
him, without a parting prayer. Such is the end of the wicked.

In a day or two, I noticed that a rude wooden cross had been set over
the spot: and it gratified me much to hear that a rough-looking crew of
smugglers had boldly c