e gangway where the waves had washed away our
bulwarks, leaving a wide open space.

Captain Applegarth read over the remains the beautiful prayers of the
Church Service appointed for the burial of those who die at sea, all of
us standing bareheaded around.

A faint gleam of light from the setting sun, away on our port bow, shone
through a mist of cloud that obscured the horizon to windward; and, as
this disappeared, the skipper came to the end of the viaticum, when, at
a signal from the boatswain, the plank was tipped and poor Jackson's
body was committed to the deep with a sigh of regret at his untimely
end, and the devout hope that though his earthly voyage had been cut
short, he might yet reach that haven where there are no accidents nor
shipwrecks, and where seas swallow not up, or stormy winds blow!

Some little while after this a slight breeze sprang up from the
southward and westward, bringing a cool feeling with it, and I shivered
as I stood on the bridge looking out over the dark waste of waters,
feeling rather melancholy, if the truth be told.

"That's a bad sign, Master Haldane," said old Masters close to my ear,
making me jump, for I did not know he was there. "They say that when a
ship chap shivers like that there, it be meaning that somebody or summit
be a-walking over his grave!"

"Stave that, bo'sun!" I cried impatiently. "You're a regular old
Jonah, and enough to give a fellow the creeps!"

"Ah, you may try to laugh it off, Mister Haldane," he retorted in his
lugubrious way. "But, as I says to ye last night, says I, when that
poor chap kicked the bucket as we've just been a-burying on, we ain't
seen the end on it yet. I misdoubts the weather, too, sir. There's a
great bank of cloud now rising up to win'ard, and I fancies I heard jist
now the sound o' thunder ag'in."

"Thunder?" I exclaimed. "Nonsense!"

"No, Mister Haldane, it ain't no nonsense," said the old fellow
solemnly. "You ain't known me to croak afore without re'sin, and I
tells ye I don't likes the look o' things to-night. There's summit a-
brewin' up over there, or I'm a Dutchman!"

"What's that, bo'sun?" cried the skipper, coming up on the bridge at the
moment to look for the chart of the North Atlantic, which he had left in
the wheel-house the night before, and overheard the old growler's
remark. "Got the _Flying Dutchman_ on the brain again?"

"No, sir, I weren't talking o' that," replied Masters. "I was a-saying
to