he two men who lay
sleeping in the bow knew nothing of his death, and they were so weak
from exhaustion at the time the boy died that Dominick had thought it
unnecessary to rouse them. The poor boy's emaciated frame could lie
till morning, he thought, and then the sleepers would assist him to put
it gently into the sea.

But when morning came, the pangs of hunger assailed the self-denying
youth with terrible power, and a horrible thought occurred to him. He
opened a large clasp-knife, and, creeping towards the body, removed the
tarpaulin. A faint smile rested on the dead lips--the same smile that
had moved them when Dominick promised to carry the boy's last loving
message to his mother if he should survive.

He dropped the knife with a convulsive shudder, and turned his eyes on
his sleeping sister and brother. Then he thought, as he picked up the
knife again, how small an amount of food would suffice to keep these two
alive for a few days longer, and surely a sail _must_ come in sight at
last; they had waited for it, expectingly, so long!

Suddenly the youth flung the knife away from him with violence, and
endeavoured with all his might to lift the body of the boy. In the days
of his strength he could have raised it with one hand. Now he strove
and energised for many minutes, before he succeeded in raising it to the
gunwale. At last, with a mighty effort, he thrust it overboard, and it
fell into the sea with a heavy plunge.

The noise aroused the two men in the bow, who raised themselves feebly.
It was to them an all too familiar sound. Day by day they had heard it,
as one and another of their comrades had been committed to the deep.
One of the men managed to stand up, but as he swayed about and gazed at
Dominick inquiringly, he lost his balance, and, being too weak to
recover himself, fell over the side. He reappeared for a moment with
outstretched arms and hands clutching towards the boat. Then he sank,
to be seen no more. The other man, who had been his intimate friend and
messmate, made a frantic effort to save him. His failure to do so
seemed to be more than the poor fellow could bear, for he sprang up with
the wild laugh and the sudden strength of a maniac, and leaped into the
sea.

Dominick could do nothing to prevent this. While staring at the little
patch of foam where the two men had gone down, he was startled by the
sound of his sister's voice.

"Are they _all_ gone, brother?" she asked, i