"
Now this Pearl was no other than the seaman who pulled the stroke--oar
in the gig; a very handsome negro, and the man who afterwards forked
Whiffle out of the water--tall, powerful, and muscular, and altogether
one of the best men in the ship. The rest of the boat's crew, from his
complexion, had fastened the sobriquet of the clergyman on him.
"Call the clergyman."
The superseded interpreter, who was standing near, seemingly took no
notice, immediately traduced this literally to the unhappy men. A
murmur arose amongst them.
"Que--el padre ya! Somos en Capilla entonces--poco tiempo, poco
tiempo!"
They had thought that the clergyman having been sent for, the sentence
was immediately to be executed, but I undeceived them; and, in ten
minutes after they were condemned, they were marched off under a strong
escort of foot to the jail.
I must make a long story short. Two days afterwards, I was ordered with
the launch to Kingston, early in the morning, to receive twenty--five of
the pirates who had been ordered for execution that morning at Gallows
Point. It was little past four in the morning when we arrived at the
Wherry wharf, where they were already clustered, with their hands
pinioned behind their backs, silent and sad, but all of them calm, and
evincing no unmanly fear of death.
I don't know if other people have noticed it, but this was one of
several instances where I have seen foreigners--Frenchmen, Italians, and
Spaniards, for instance--meet death, inevitable death, with greater
firmness than British soldiers or sailors.
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