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.