She drove far up the beach, with the slack
water breaking around her scarred stern, and when the tide ebbed
she lay high and dry. And the rebel soldiers came trooping down
from the Megano rancho and falling upon her carcass like so many
ants, quickly distributed her cargo amongst them, and disappeared.
Captain Scraggs sent his crew out aboard the captured gunboat to
assist Mr. Gibney in rowing his prisoners ashore, and when
finally he stood alone beside the wreck of the brave old
_Maggie_, piled up at last in the port of missing ships,
something snapped within his breast and the big tears rolled in
quick succession down his sun-tanned cheeks. The old hulk looked
peculiarly pathetic as she lay there, listed over on her beam
ends. She had served him well, but she had finished her last
voyage, and with some vague idea of saving her old bones from
vandal hands, Captain Scraggs, sobbing audibly, scattered the
contents of half a dozen cans of kerosene over her decks and in
the cabin, lighted fires in three different sections of the
wreck, and left her to the consuming flames. Half an hour later
he stood on the battered decks of the gunboat beside Gibney and
McGuffey and watched the dense clouds of smoke that heralded the
passing of the _Maggie_.
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