The Gentleman's Pocket Magazine (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: an ineffectual chase, they returned to where Julian lay, mortally wounded, on the shore, and before sunrise they arrived at the village. Vavao was never seen nor heard of again. It was supposed that in his precipitate flight, he had unwarily struck his canoe against a coral reef that partly surrounds the islands. On the morning after these transactions, a savage who had been fishing, and was conveying his spoil to sell to the Spanish crew, saw a shattered and overturned canoe floating on the ocean, and not far from it, on the reef, was the body of Isabel. In hopes of obtaining a reward, he drew it from the rock, and conveyed it to the dwellings of her friends. Julian did not expire till the evening following that on which he had received his wounds. After he had been brought to the village, the surgeon of the frigate restored him to sensation and to suffering; for whilst the fate of Isabel was uncertain, his anguish of mind almost drove him to frenzy. When he was told that her lifeless body had been found, he became calm; the wildness of his eye disappeared; a gentle smile rested on his features. He conversed with his friends and related the particulars of his walk on the promontory - The chaplain of the ship administered to him the rites prescribed by his church for dying men. When these were completed, he closed his eyes and seemed absorbed in silent devotion. In a few minute he died. After a few days the frigate departed; but not until Julian and Isabel were buried in one grave under the palm trees, near the place where the last moments of their lives were spent. No noise, except the wild screams of the sea-bird, is ever heard on that solitary promontory. Those who sleep there are now entirely forgotton by the islanders, and indeed, by almost every one else; for f...