rn seas for fifty {54} years. In all, out
of a crew of seventy-seven, there had perished by January 6, 1742, when
the last death occurred, thirty-one men.

Steller's hut was next to Bering's. From that November day when he was
carried from the ship through the snow to the sand pit, the commander
sank without rallying. Foxskins had been spread on the ground as a bed;
but the sand loosened from the sides of the pit and kept rolling down on
the dying man. Toward the last he begged Steller to let the sand rest,
as it kept in the warmth; so that he was soon covered with sand to his
waist. White billows and a gray sky followed the hurricane gale that had
hurled the ship in on the beach. All night between the evening of the
7th and the morning of the 8th of December, the moaning of the south wind
could be heard through the tattered rigging of the wrecked ship; and all
night the dying Dane was communing with his God. He was now over sixty
years of age. To a constitution already broken by the nagging cares of
eight years and by hardships indescribable, by scurvy and by exposure,
was added an acute inflammation. Bering's power of resistance was
sapped. Two hours before daybreak on December 8, 1741, the brave Dane
breathed his last. He was interred on the 9th of December between the
graves of the mate and the steward on the hillside; and the bearded
Russians came down from the new-made grave that day bowed and hopeless.
A plain Greek cross was placed above {55} his grave; and a copy of that
cross marks the same grave to-day.

The question arises--where does Bering stand among the world heroes? The
world loves success better than defeat; and spectacular success better
than duty plainly done. If success means accomplishing what one sets out
to do in spite of almost insuperable difficulties--Bering won success.
He set out to discover the northwest coast of America; and he perished
doing it. But if heroism means a something more than tangible success;
if it means that divine quality of fighting for the truth independent of
reward, whether one is to be beaten or not; if it means setting to one's
self the task of perishing for a truth, without the slightest hope of
establishing that truth--then, Bering stands very high indeed among the
world's heroes. Steller, who had cursed him for not remaining longer at
Mount St. Elias, bore the highest testimony to his integrity and worth.
It may be said that a stronger type of hero w