lence one only heard the swish of
water against the 'Fulvia's' side, as we sped on towards Aden. People do
not know how beautiful, how powerful, is the burial service in the Book
of Common Prayer, who have only heard it recited by a clergyman. To hear
it read by a hardy man, whose life is among stern duties, is to receive
a new impression. He knows nothing of lethargic monotone; he interprets
as he reads. And when the man is the home-spun captain of a ship, who
sees before him the poor shell of one that served him for ten years,
"The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the name of the
Lord," has a strange significance. It is only men who have borne
the shock of toil and danger, and have beaten up against the world's
buffetings, that are fit to say last words over those gone down in the
storm or translated in the fiery chariot of duty.

The engines suddenly stopped. The effect was weird. Captain Ascott's
fingers trembled, and he paused for an instant and looked down upon
the dead, then out sorrowfully to the waiting sea, before he spoke the
words, "We therefore commit their bodies to the deep." But, the moment
they were uttered, the bier was lifted, there was a swift plunge, and
only the flag and the empty boards were left. The sobbing of women now
seemed almost unnatural; for around us was the bright sunlight, the gay
dresses of the lascars, the sound of the bell striking the hours, and
children playing on the deck. The ship moved on.

And Mrs. Falchion? As the burial service was read, she had stood, and
looked, not at the bier, but straight out to sea, calm and apparently
unsympathetic, though, as she thought, her husband was being buried.
When, however, the weighted body divided the water with a swingeing
sound, her face suddenly suffused, as though shame had touched her
or some humiliating idea had come. But she turned to Justine almost
immediately, and soon after said calmly: "Bring a play of Moliere, and
read to me, Justine."

I had the packet her supposed dead husband had left for her in my
pocket. I joined her, and we paced the deck, at first scarcely speaking,
while the passengers dispersed, some below, some to the smoking-rooms,
some upon deck-chairs to doze through the rest of the lazy afternoon.
The world had taken up its orderly course again. At last, in an
unfrequented corner of the deck, I took the packet from my pocket and
handed it to her. "You understand?" I asked.

"Yes, I understand