Free The Book of Pirates and Highwaymen by Cate Ludlow Page A

grapple with his murderous opponent, or take any measures for farther defence, La Force had completed his monstrous career of evil, and the broken-hearted De Tracy was released from his earthly suffering which oppressed him. The unhappy man received the dagger of La Force in his chest, and he was mercifully spared pangs of recollection: his death was instantaneous.
    Dugald, from the effects of his blow, was still insensible to all that passed; and La Force experienced no opposition to all his measures. He instantly attached one or two cannon shot to the corpse of the unhappy man, and unrelentingly consigned it to the devouring deep. He proceeded to secure Dugald, before his recovery from his accident should render it difficult or impossible. He dragged him to the mast, to which, ere his senses had returned, he found himself bound hand-and-foot. The exulting fiend now seemed to have overcome all obstacle to the full completion of his crime, and wanted but the assistance of his fellows, who were still fastened below, totally incapable of any exertion.
    Through the thickness of the storm, Dugald now fancied he saw a small boat dancing on the tremendous waves at a short distance to leeward of the ship; now buried in the trough of the sea, and lost to his straining sight for some moments; now quivering between life and death on the raging summit of a billow, and again shooting down its roaring declivity, as if to destruction. The ship continued to gain on the frail bark, and, to the hopes and imagination of Dugald, it seemed to enjoy a special protection; for he could now perceive that it contained the precious burden of his beloved mistress and her remaining children, and he could distinctly observe the mulatto throwing up her arms in signal to the ship.
    Through the gleaming openings of the disturbed elements, there now appeared, about two miles from the starboard bow, a large ship, scudding before the wind, suffering, like themselves, under the storm, but evidently in good condition. The haunted imagination of La Force now saw before him the choice of punishment, a dreadful death with his devoted companions with the sinking vessel, or an ignominious and public punishment by the intervention of the passing ship. The evidence of Dugald would, in that case, be conclusive against him, and the wretched criminal yet conceived the thought of embruing his guilty hands in his blood also: but his doom was fixed. The remaining mast, to which Dugald was confined, was at this moment carried away by a heavy shock, and in the wreck of its fall he was so far released as to be able to disengage himself entirely.
    La Force, who, in his distraction, had not observed the canoe towards which the ship was driving, was now springing forward to an attack on Dugald; Dugald, on his part, had seized a crow-bar as a weapon, and, meeting the enraged monster in his advance, placed himself in a position of defence, and pointed out to his astonished sight the canoe in which four of his victims were thus miraculously preserved, and the floating corpse of the murdered De Tracy, which, from its natural buoyancy, and the shifting of the ballast, by which it was sunk, to the feet, now swam erect in the water, exposed below the breast, and had drifted towards the vessel, as if seeking judgement on its destroyer. The inanimate body seemed to the staring eye-balls of La Force to be the visitation of a spirit; the villain was nerveless; he raved for mercy, attempted prayer, and called, in vain, on his companions for succour; at this moment the ship, which had been for some time but struggling with her fate, made a lurch, which threw her broadside to the sweeping sea; she instantly filled, and shot down head-foremost. Dugald sprang from the stern in time to avoid the whirlpool of the sinking ship. La Force, in an attempt to throw himself over-board, was entangled by the head in the fallen rigging, and on his knees, screaming for mercy was the blood-stained and