ht on deck, laid
on a hatch at the gangway, and covered with the blue, star-spangled
American Jack. Then all hands were mustered in the waist, the ship's
bell was tolled, and the ensign run up halfway.

The captain was still too ill to be moved, so the mate stepped forward
with a rusty old Common Prayer-book in his hands, whereon my vagrant
fancy immediately fastened in frantic endeavour to imagine how it came
to be there. The silence of death was over all. True, the man was but
a unit of no special note among us, but death had conferred upon him a
brevet rank, in virtue of which be dominated every thought. It seemed
strange to me that we who faced death so often and variously, until
natural fear had become deadened by custom, should, now that one of
our number lay a rapidly-corrupting husk before us, be so tremendously
impressed by the simple, inevitable fact. I suppose it was because
none of us were able to realize the immanence of Death until we saw
his handiwork. Mr. Count opened the book, fumbling nervously among the
unfamiliar leaves. Then he suddenly looked up, his weather-scarred face
glowing a dull brick-red, and said, in a low voice, "This thing's too
many fer me; kin any of ye do it? Ef not, I guess we'll hev ter take it
as read." There was no response for a moment; then I stepped forward,
reaching out my hand for the book. Its contents were familiar enough to
me, for in happy pre-arab days I had been a chorister in the old Lock
Chapel, Harrow Road, and had borne my part in the service so often that
I think even now I could repeat the greater part of it MEMORITER. Mr.
Count gave it me without a word, and, trembling like a leaf, I turned
to the "Burial Service," and began the majestic sentences, "I am the
Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord." I did not know my own voice
as the wonderful words sounded clearly in the still air; but if ever a
small body of soul-hardened men FELT the power of God, it was then. At
the words, "We therefore commit his body to the deep," I paused, and,
the mate making a sign, two of the harpooners tilted the hatch, from
which the remains slid off into the unknown depths with a dull splash.
Several of the dead man's compatriots covered their faces, and murmured
prayers for the repose of his soul, while the tears trickled through
their horny fingers. But matters soon resumed their normal course; the
tension over, back came the strings of life into position again, to play
the same