The Wing-and-wing

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ... 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. 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. 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 become of twice its natural size, in this manner, as a matter of course, displaces twice the usual quantity of water: the weight of...