ursing incoherently, deep in his throat. When I made my departure,
a moment later, Davis was refilling his pipe and telling Mr. Mellaire
that he'd have him up for a witness in Seattle.

* * * * *

So we have had another burial at sea. Mr. Pike was vexed by it because
the _Elsinore_, according to sea tradition, was going too fast through
the water for a proper ceremony. Thus a few minutes of the voyage were
lost by backing the _Elsinore's_ main-topsail and deadening her way while
the service was read and O'Sullivan was slid overboard with the
inevitable sack of coal at his feet.

"Hope the coal holds out," Mr. Pike grumbled morosely at me five minutes
later.

* * * * *

And we sit on the poop, Miss West and I, tended on by servants, sipping
afternoon tea, sewing fancy work, discussing philosophy and art, while a
few feet away from us, on this tiny floating world, all the grimy, sordid
tragedy of sordid, malformed, brutish life plays itself out. And Captain
West, remote, untroubled, sits dreaming in the twilight cabin while the
draught of wind from the crojack blows upon him through the open ports.
He has no doubts, no worries. He believes in God. All is settled and
clear and well as he nears his far home. His serenity is vast and
enviable. But I cannot shake from my eyes that vision of him when life
forsook his veins, and his mouth slacked, and his eyelids closed, while
his face took on the white transparency of death.

I wonder who will be the next to finish the game and depart with a sack
of coal.

"Oh, this is nothing, sir," Mr. Mellaire remarked to me cheerfully as we
strolled the poop during the first watch. "I was once on a voyage on a
tramp steamer loaded with four hundred Chinks--I beg your pardon,
sir--Chinese. They were coolies, contract labourers, coming back from
serving their time.

"And the cholera broke out. We hove over three hundred of them
overboard, sir, along with both bosuns, most of the Lascar crew, and the
captain, the mate, the third mate, and the first and third engineers. The
second and one white oiler was all that was left below, and I was in
command on deck, when we made port. The doctors wouldn't come aboard.
They made me anchor in the outer roads and told me to heave out my dead.
There was some tall buryin' about that time, Mr. Pathurst, and they went
overboard without canvas, coal, or iron. They had to. I had nobody to
help me, and the Chinks below wouldn't lift a h