Throwing on his clothes he proceeded to the spot, and beheld the individual, with whom he had held the preceding conference, in the precise situation in which he had first been found.
The miserable wretch had fallen a victim to his intemperance.

This revolting fact was sufficiently proclaimed by his obtruding eye-balls, his bloated countenance, and the nearly insufferable odours that were even then exhaling from his carcass.

Disgusted with the odious spectacle, the youth was turning from the sight, after ordering the corpse to be removed, when the position of one of the dead man's hands struck him.

On examination, he found the fore-finger extended, as if in the act of writing in the sand, with the following incomplete sentence, nearly illegible, but yet in a state to be deciphered: "Captain, it is true, as I am a gentle--" He had either died, or fallen into a sleep, the forerunner of his death, before the latter word was finished.
Concealing this fact from the others, Middleton repeated his orders and departed.

The pertinacity of the deceased, and all the circumstances united, induced him to set on foot some secret enquiries.