red in a voice
which quivered slightly with emotion, fell clearly and distinctly from
the captain's lips, and went straight to the hearts of the throng of
ocean warriors who had gathered to bid a last long, sad farewell to
their fallen comrades, and to consign them with all honour to a sailor's
grave. The bronzed and bearded faces of the listeners wore an
expression of gravity well suited to the most solemn ceremonial of the
Christian faith, and as the impressive service proceeded, more than one
of the stalwart seamen, who had a few hours before fought side by side
with those who now lay at their feet wrapped cold and stark in their
bloody shrouds, dashed with a hasty and furtive hand the unwonted tears
away.

Nor were the externals of the scene altogether inappropriate to the
occasion. The frigate, pausing in her rapid flight, swayed slowly and
majestically upon the bosom of the surges which would soon receive the
bodies of her dead heroes, and hung, as if in sentient grief, over the
spot which was to be their tomb. Her graceful hull, lofty spars, and
snowy canvas gleamed refulgent in the last rays of the setting sun as he
sank to his rest through a bank of rainbow-tinted clouds, and the rising
wind sobbed and moaned dirge-like through her taut rigging.

At length the glorious luminary touched the horizon, staining the bosom
of the waters to a deep rosy hue, and flinging a broad pathway of
glittering molten gold from the ocean's rim across the restless billows
clear up to the frigate's side. Slowly sank the broad disk behind the
purple horizon, as the solemn ceremony drew to an end. The ensign, that
meteor flag, beneath whose folds so many heroes have fought and died,
was gently raised, and at the words "Forasmuch as it hath pleased
Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the souls of our
dear brothers here departed, we therefore commit their bodies to the
deep,"--the inner ends of the gratings upon which the dead lay were
slowly elevated, the sullen plunge of the bodies smote upon the ear, and
the last ray of the departing sun flashed upon the swirling eddies where
they had disappeared, dyeing them deep in crimson and gold.

The ocean suddenly darkened, the gorgeous cloud-tints faded into tender
grey, and, as the service came to a conclusion, a gun boomed the
frigate's farewell to her lost ones; the main-yard was swung; and the
dead were left to their last long sleep deep within the sheltering boso