y rows amidships, forward of the mainmast, and all was
ready when the word was passed. The crew assembled in the gangways
facing aft, the boatswain, gunner, carpenter, sailmaker, and other
warrant officers at their head. The captain, attended by Colonel
Wilton and the first lieutenant in full uniform, and surrounded by the
officers down to the smallest midshipman, stood facing the crew on the
quarter-deck; back of the officers, on the opposite side of the deck,
the marine guard was drawn up. At the break of the poop stood the
slender, graceful figure of a woman, alone, clearly outlined against
the low light of the setting sun, looking mournfully down upon the
picture, her heart, though filled with sadness and sorrow particularly
her own, still great enough to feel sympathy for others.

The chaplain, clothed in the white vestments of his sacred office,
presently came from out the cabin beneath the poop-deck, and stopped
opposite the gangway between the line of men and officers. Two of the
boatswain's mates, at a signal from the first lieutenant, stepped to
the row of bodies and carefully lifted up the first one and laid it on
a grating, covering it at the same time with a flag. They next lifted
the grating and placed one end of it on the rail overlooking the sea,
and held the other in their hands and waited. The captain uncovered,
all the other officers and the men following his example.

The chaplain began to read from the book in his hand. The first body
on the grating was a very small one,--only a boy, looking smaller in
contrast to those of the men by which it had lain. The little figure
of the Honorable Giles looked pathetic indeed. Some of the little
fellow's messmates had hard work to stifle their tears; here and there
in the ranks of the silent men the back of a hand would go furtively up
to a wet eye, as the minister read on and on.

How run the words?

"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, in His wise Providence, to
take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother--" Was it
indeed Thy pleasure, O God, that this little "brother" should die? Was
Thy Providence summed up in this little silent figure? Alas, who can
answer?

And then as the even voice of the priest went on with the solemn and
beautiful words which never grow familiar,--"we therefore commit his
body to the deep,"--the first lieutenant nodded to the watching
sailors. They lifted the inboard end of the grating high in the