The officers who were killed were Don Juan Cisniega, a lieutenant in the navy, who was not related to my master, in spite of their identity of name; Don Joaquin de Salas and Don Juan Matute, also lieutenants; Don José Graullé, lieutenant-colonel in the army; Urias, lieutenant in command of a frigate, and midshipman Don Antonio de Bobadilla. The sailors and marines whose corpses lay strewn about the gun-decks and upper-deck amounted to the terrible number of four hundred.
Never shall I forget the moment when the bodies were cast into the sea, by order of the English officer in charge of the ship. The dismal ceremony took place on the morning of the 22nd when the storm seemed to be at its wildest on purpose to add to the terrors of the scene. The bodies of the officers were brought on deck, the priest said a short prayer for this was no time for elaborate ceremonial, and our melancholy task began. Each wrapped in a flag, with a cannonball tied to his feet, was dropped into the waves without any of the solemn and painful emotion which under ordinary circumstances would have agitated the lookers-on. Our spirits were so quelled by disaster that the contemplation of death had become almost indifference. Still, a burial at sea is more terribly sad than one on land. We cover the dead with earth and leave him there; those who loved him know that there is a spot where the dear remains are laid and can mark it with a slab, a cross, or a monument; but at sea—the body is cast into that heaving, shifting waste; it is lost forever as it disappears; imagination cannot follow it in its fall—down, down to the fathomless abyss; it is impossible to realize that it still exists at the bottom of the deep. These were my reflections as I watched the corpses vanish—the remains of those brave fighting-men, so full of life only the day before—the pride of their country and the joy of all who loved them.
The sailors were thrown overboard with less ceremony; the regulation is that they shall be tied up in their hammocks, but there was no time to carry this out. Some indeed were wrapped round as the rules require, but most of them were thrown into the sea without any shroud or ball at their feet, for the simple reason that there were not enough for all. There were four hundred of them, more or less, and merely to clear them overboard and out of sight every able-bodied man that was left had to lend a hand, so as to get it done as quickly as possible. Much to my horror I saw myself forced to offer my services in the dismal duty, and many a dead man dropped over the ship’s side at a push from my hand helping other and stronger ones.
One incident—or rather coincidence—occurred which filled me with horror. A body horribly mauled and mutilated had been picked up by two sailors, and just as they lifted it one or two of the bystanders allowed themselves to utter some of those coarse and grim jests which are always offensive, and at such a moment revolting. I know not how it was that this poor wretch was the only one which moved them so completely to lose the sense of reverence due to the dead, but they exclaimed: “He has been paid out for old scores—he will never be at his tricks again,” and other witticisms of the same kind. For a moment my blood rose, but my indignation suddenly turned to astonishment mingled with an indescribable feeling of awe, regret, and aversion, when, on looking at the mangled features of the corpse, I recognized my uncle. I shut my eyes with a shudder, and did not open them again till the splash of the water in my face told me that he had disappeared forever from mortal ken. This man had been very cruel to me, very cruel to his sister; still, he was my own flesh and blood, my mother’s brother; the blood that flowed in my veins was his, and that secret voice which warns us to be charitable to the faults of our own kith and kin could not be silenced after what I had seen, for at the moment when I recognized him I had perceived in those bloodstained features some reminder of my mother’s face, and this stirred my deepest feelings. I forgot that the man had been a brutal wretch, and all his barbarous treatment of me during my hapless childhood. I can honestly declare—and I venture to do so though it is to my own credit—that I forgave him with all my heart and lifted up my soul to God, praying for mercy on him for all his sins.
I learned afterwards that he had behaved gallantly in the fight, but even this had not won him the respect of his comrades who, regarding him as a low sneak, never found a good word for him—not even at that supreme moment when, as a rule, every offence is forgiven on earth in the belief that the sinner is rendering an account to his Maker.
As the day advanced the Prince attempted once more to take the Santísima Trinidad in tow, but with no better success than before. Our situation was no worse, although the tempest raged with undiminished fury, for a good deal of the mischief had been patched up, and we thought that if the weather should mend the hulk, at any rate, might be saved. The English made a great point of it, for they were very anxious to take the largest man-of-war ever seen afloat into Gibraltar as a trophy; so they willingly plied
