chaplain of the Poughkeepsie.  This divine prayed with the dying man; but even he, in the last moments of the sufferer, was little more than a passive but shocked witness of remorse, suspended over the abyss of eternity in hopeless dread.  We shall not enter into the details of the revolting scene, but simply add that curses, blasphemy, tremulous cries for mercy, agonized entreaties to be advised, and sullen defiance, were all strangely and fearfully blended.  In the midst of one of these revolting paroxysms, Spike breathed his last.  A few hours later, his body was interred in the sands of the shore.  It may be well to say in this place, that the hurricane of 1846, which is known to have occurred only a few months later, swept off the frail covering, and that the body was washed away to leave its bones among the wrecks and relics of the Florida Reef.

Mulford did not return from his fruitless expedition in quest of the remains of Mrs. Budd, until after the death and interment of Spike.  As nothing remained to be done at Key West, he and Rose accompanied by Jack Tier, took passage for Charleston in the first convenient vessel that offered.  Two days before they sailed, the Poughkeepsie went out to cruise in the Gulf, agreeably to her general orders.  The evening previously Captain Mull, Wallace, and the chaplain, passed with the bridegroom and bride, when the matter of the doubloons found in the boat was discussed.  It was agreed that Jack Tier should have them; and into her hands the bag was now placed.  On this occasion, to oblige the officers, Jack went into a narrative of all she had seen and suffered, from the moment when abandoned by her late husband down to that when she found him again.  It was a strange account, and one filled with surprising adventures.  In most of the vessels in which she had served, Jack had acted in the steward’s department, though she had frequently done duty as a fore-mast hand.  In strength and skill she admitted that she had often failed; but in courage, never.  Having been given reason to think her husband was reduced to serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean, and had actually made a whole cruise as a ward-room boy on that station.  While thus employed, she had met with two of the gentlemen present; Captain Mull and Mr. Wallace.  The former was then first-lieutenant of the frigate, and the latter a passed-midshipman; and in these capacities both had been well known to her.  As the name she then bore was the same as that under which she now “hailed,” these officers were soon made to recollect her, though Jack was no longer the light, trim-built lad he had then appeared to be.  Neither of the gentlemen named had made the whole cruise in the ship, but each had been promoted and transferred to another craft, after being Jack’s shipmate rather more than a year.  This information greatly facilitated the affair of the doubloons.