odily and mental, to manage
the schooner. For an hour the blast drove us along, while, owing to the
sharpness of the vessel's bow and the press of canvass, she dashed
through the waves instead of breasting over them, thereby drenching the
decks with water fore and aft. At the end of that time the squall passed
away, and left us rocking on the bosom of the agitated sea.

My first care, the instant I could quit the helm, was to raise Bill from
the deck and place him on the couch. I then ran below for the brandy
bottle and rubbed his face and hands with it, and endeavoured to pour a
little down his throat. But my efforts, although I continued them long
and assiduously, were of no avail; as I let go the hand which I had been
chafing it fell heavily on the deck. I laid my hand over his heart, and
sat for some time quite motionless, but there was no flutter there--the
pirate was dead!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Alone on the deep--Necessity the mother of invention--A valuable book
discovered--Natural phenomenon--A bright day in my history.

It was with feelings of awe, not unmingled with fear, that I now seated
myself on the cabin sky-light and gazed upon the rigid features of my
late comrade, while my mind wandered over his past history and
contemplated with anxiety my present position. Alone! in the midst of
the wide Pacific, having a most imperfect knowledge of navigation, and in
a schooner requiring at least eight men as her proper crew. But I will
not tax the reader's patience with a minute detail of my feelings and
doings during the first few days that followed the death of my companion.
I will merely mention that I tied a cannon ball to his feet and, with
feelings of the deepest sorrow, consigned him to the deep.

For fully a week after that a steady breeze blew from the east, and, as
my course lay west-and-by-north, I made rapid progress towards my
destination. I could not take an observation, which I very much
regretted, as the captain's quadrant was in the cabin; but, from the day
of setting sail from the island of the savages, I had kept a dead
reckoning, and as I knew pretty well now how much lee-way the schooner
made, I hoped to hit the Coral Island without much difficulty. In this I
was the more confident that I knew its position on the chart (which I
understood was a very good one), and so had its correct bearings by
compass.

As the weather seemed now quite settled and fine, and as I had got into