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.
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