Chapter 15

"Sleep, sleep, thou sad one, on the sea;
The wash of waters lulls thee now;
His arm no more will pillow thee,
Thy hand upon his brow;
He is not near, to hurt thee, or to save:
The ground is his--the sea must be thy grave."

DANA.

A long summer's evening did the body of Francesco Caraccioli hang
suspended at the yard-arm of the Minerva; a revolting spectacle to his
countrymen and to most of the strangers who had been the witnesses of
his end. Then was it lowered into a boat, its feet loaded with a
double-headed shot, and it was carried out a league or more into the bay
and cast into the sea. The revolting manner in which it rose to the
surface and confronted its destroyers a fortnight later has passed into
history; and, to this day, forms one of the marvels related by the
ignorant and wonder-loving of that region[6]. As for Ghita, she
disappeared no one knew how; Vito Viti and his companions being too
much absorbed with the scene to note the tender and considerate manner
in which Raoul rowed her off from a spectacle that could but be replete
with horrors to one so situated. Cuffe himself stood but a few minutes
longer; but he directed his boat's crew to pull alongside of the
Proserpine. In half an hour after the execution took place this frigate
was aweigh; and then she was seen standing out of the bay, before a
light air, covered with canvas from her truck to her hammock-cloths.
Leaving her for the moment, we will return to the party in the skiff.

[6] Singular as was this occurrence, and painful as it must have proved
to the parties to the execution, it is one of the simplest consequences
of natural causes. All animal matter swells in water previously to
turning corrupt. A body that has became of twice its natural size, in
this manner, as a matter of course, displaces twice the usual quantity
of water; the _weight_ of the mass remaining the same. Most human frames
floating, in their natural state, so long as the lungs are inflated with
air, it follows that one in this condition would bring up with it as
much weight in iron, as made the difference between its own gravity and
that of the water it displaced. The upright attitude of Caraccioli was
owing to the shot attached to the feet; of which, it _is_ also probable,
one or two had become loosened.

Neither Carlo Giuntotardi nor Ghita Caraccioli--for so we must continue
to call the girl, albeit the name is much too illustrious to be borne by
one of her humble condition in life--but neither of these two had any
other design, in thus seeking out the unfortunate admiral, than to
perform what each believed to be a duty. As soon as the fate of
Caraccioli was decided, both were willing to return to their old
position in