The reader will have understood that many vessels of war, English, Russian, Turkish, and Neapolitan, were now anchored in the bay.  As the French still held the castle of St. Elmo, or the citadel that crowns the heights, that in their turn crown the town, the shipping did not lie quite as close to the mole as usual, lest a shot from the enemy above might do them injury; but they were sufficiently near to permit all the idle and curious of Naples, who had the hearts and the means, to pull off and become spectators of the sad scene that was about to occur.  As the hour drew near, boat after boat arrived, until the Minerva was surrounded with spectators, many of whom belonged even to the higher classes of society.

The distance between the Neapolitan frigate and the ship of the English rear-admiral was not great; and everything that occurred on board the former, and which was not actually hidden by the sides and bulwarks of the vessel itself, was easily to be seen from the decks of the latter.  Still the Foudroyant lay a little without the circle of boats; and in that direction Raoul had pulled to avoid the throng, resting on his oars when about a third of a cable’s length from the British admiral’s stern.  Here it was determined to wait for the awful signal and its fatal consequences.  The brief interval was passed by Ghita in telling her beads, while Carlo joined in the prayers with the devotion of a zealot.  It is scarcely necessary to say that all this Raoul witnessed without faith, though it would be doing injustice to his nature, as well as to his love for Ghita, to say he did so without sympathy.

A solemn and expecting silence reigned in all the neighboring ships.  The afternoon was calm and sultry, the zephyr ceasing to blow earlier than common, as if unwilling to disturb the melancholy scene with its murmurs.  On board the Minerva no sign of life—­scarcely of death—–­ was seen; though a single whip was visible, rigged to the fore-yard arm, one end being led in-board, while the other ran along the yard, passed through a leading block in its quarter, and descended to the deck.  There was a platform fitted on two of the guns beneath this expressive but simple arrangement; but, as it was in-board, it was necessarily concealed from all but those who were on the Minerva’s decks.  With these preparations Raoul was familiar, and his understanding eye saw the particular rope that was so soon to deprive Ghita of her grandfather; though it was lost to her and her uncle among the maze of rigging by which it was surrounded.

There might have been ten minutes passed in this solemn stillness, during which the crowd of boats continued to collect; and the crews of the different ships were permitted to take such positions as enabled them to become spectators of a scene that it was hoped might prove admonitory.  It is part of the etiquette of a vessel of war to make her people keep close; it being deemed one sign of a well-ordered ship to