Part 20 (2/2)

I don't know whether he heard my step, or the cry I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed when the doctor spoke of his approaching end.

Whatever it was, something made my dying s.h.i.+pmate open his eyes just then, his glance wandering round the circle of those near.

”What is it, my poor lad?” asked the chaplain kindly, stooping down, so as to hear better any request he might make. ”Is there anything you would like done or said for you?”

He was thinking, good man, no doubt, of offering up a prayer.

But the mind of Moses Reeks--to call him by his right name, and drop the somewhat opprobrious sobriquet by which I have hitherto styled the poor fellow, and by which, indeed, he was always known on board--was still bent on things terrestrial; though, possibly, his motive might have been as high and had as divine a source as anything the chaplain might have intended to say!

His eyes lighted on me and their wandering ceased.

”Coom here, lad,” he whispered very faintly, so very faintly that his lips seemed to give out no sound at all. ”Coom here!”

I heard, though, and went to his side, listening earnestly, for I could not speak.

He did not notice this, however, making up, with his slowly ebbing senses, what he wished himself to say.

”To-am Bowlin',” he faltered out in lisping accents with his failing breath, ”ye've done Oi a toorn wanst, lad, an' I wer an oongrateful cur to 'ee, thet Oi wer, ez Oi didn't warnt fur to be a-beholden to yer; but you a' me, To-am, be naow quits, lad!”

As he thus spoke, a smile irradiated his rough-hewn features, making them look positively beautiful; and, with the last word he uttered, his spirit fled, with a sigh that was stifled in its birth.

The commodore uncovered his head in the presence of Death--the superior officer of even one flying the broad pennant and the personal representative of her Majesty wherever the broad red cross of Saint George, borne on that oblong flag, may float.

At that moment the s.h.i.+p's bugler forwards sounded the 'a.s.sembly.'

”Peace to his spirit, poor boy,” said our chief solemnly. ”He's gone to his last muster!”

It was Two Bells in the first dog-watch before the _Ruby_ closed with us sufficiently to speak with us; when she reported that she had parted with the other s.h.i.+ps of the squadron even before she had lost sight of us at the commencement of the gale, not seeing anything of them since.

Her commander also informed the commodore that they had lost two men overboard while reefing topsails in a squall, the sea running so high that it was impossible to lower a boat to save them.

We, in our turn, told of poor 'Ugly's' heroic end: and, as it was approaching sunset, his body was sewn up in his hammock, with a shot fastened to the feet, and committed to the deep.

All hands were present while the chaplain read the funeral service on the quarter-deck: and, as the grating on which the poor fellow's remains rested, covered for the moment with the Union Jack, was canted through the port and its lifeless burden went below with a splash, to its last resting-place until the sea shall give up its dead, the waning sun dipped below the horizon.

We then squared yards and bore away straight for Madeira, with the _Ruby_ keeping company on our lee beam; the wind having sobered down now to a good ten-knot breeze, and the weather all that one could wish, getting warmer with every hour of south lat.i.tude that we made.

Everybody was jolly that evening as we bowled along before the spanking breeze, fresh sail being set every watch, until the corvette was presently clothed in canvas from truck to keelson, the commodore wis.h.i.+ng to take every advantage of the fair wind we had; but, though all the rest, sailor-like, were laughing and joking on the mess-deck forwards, I could not so soon forget the poor chap who had gone, his n.o.ble self- sacrifice being ever in my mind.

It was strange that reserved, unforgiving, and yet not unforgetful temperament of his!

I saw now, when too late, that he had not been quite oblivious of my having saved him that time on board the _Saint Vincent_ when he so nearly tumbled from aloft. He had not been ungrateful, as Mick and I thought him, evidently.

On the contrary, the obligation he believed himself to be under to me had so weighed upon him that he was too proud to speak until he had cleared it off, so, he apparently fancied, to be able to treat with me on level terms.

Mick Donovan had not been on deck when the tragic occurrence happened; but he was almost as much impressed as myself when I told him of our s.h.i.+pmate's last words.

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