Part 12 (2/2)

No movement, or response His feet--cold! cold! and his chest, too, cold!

The mate had found his port after stormy seas His heart--worn out with stress and strain--had failed within hiht tenderly of hi that his sleep was the sleep of a day, not the sleep of eternity that no earthly din may disturb

The weather was still boisterous, but it was essential to take the body to Bowen, to render unto the authorities there conclusive evidence that death had been the result of natural causes My visitor's nerves were then virile But the time of stress and strain was at hand He found hirim responsibility forced upon hieously faced, and perforht be Instead of the enjoyment of comfort and rest, and days of busy co hopes, there was the shock that sudden death inflicts, drarief, forced exertion, and the abandon prospects

With pain and infinite labour he succeeded in dragging and rolling the corpse to the beach Thence he pushed it up a plank on to the deck of the cutter, and leaving his possessions to chance and fate, he, the wearied and bereaved one-armed man, set sail in violent weather across the open sea to the nearest port Atflashed over the stricken yeasty sea A lonesorim quest this--full of peril Did not Nature in the trueful spirit decree the destruction of the little boat as she bounced and floundered a to the ocean--prey escaping from the talons of the fiercest and most remorseless of harpies So they shrieked and swar for as theirs The strife was great, but not too great for the lonely ht do their worst, but until the actual finale ca the white hissing bulk of the following sea

When at last the boat ran into port, the sea had gained a ave to the authorities the mortal remains of his mate to be buried decently on land

He told ain Once before he had given up ”sailorising,” not then on account of his nerves, but because ambition to possess a sweet-potato patch, puot hold of hi nowas no barrier to the wallabies, and he abandoned the enterprise to theht wire netting to keep out the wallabies, and wouldwould help to keep hih--too et a shake, and you had better give it up And the little boat!--I broke that rail as I was getting poor Andrew's body on board She is all right, but for that--and she's for sale!”

In an hour, having concocted sole-handed nerve-shaken, old sailor set sail, and I knew him no more

Another of poor old ”Yorky's” adventures is worth telling While out on the Barrier Reef, the black crew of his beche-de- him and his mate on the head, threw them overboard The sudden souse into the water restored ”Yorky” to consciousness, and he swam back to the cutter whence the blacks had hastily fled in the dingy It was a desperate struggle for a one-ar to and clamber up the side of the boat, but ”Yorky” has never yet failed when his life was at stake He won the deck at last, but at the expense of a broken rib and the flesh on the best part of his side tom bare to the bones

Still dazed, he chanced to look over the side, where he saw hisup and down in the water Hard as it had been for him to save himself, it was more difficult still to rescue the body froh-and-ready methods, he hauled it on board, and disposed it as decently as circureat of heart, is quite unused to themood He admits that he felt pretty bad s towards his soddenfro the h-and-ready means that had been taken for his rescue, they had to be suppressed Wet, dizzy, and sadly battered, with little more apparent reason for the possession of the breath of life than his companion, he set sail, slipped the anchor, and steered for the nearest port Some distance on the way, to use ”Yorky's” own and sufficient words--”The dead man came to life!” Both had to submit to the restraint of hospital treatment for many weeks ere physical repairs were coht in physique, whose brains have been addled by bloith billets of firewood, whose side is raw and bleeding, and who has a broken rib ha hisif performed by a whole and stalwart individual? ”Yorky” has always been a wonder, and his life a series of adventures and arduous tasks, which seem to prove that the loss of a limb has been coreat deal ilded butterflies, and bear poor rogues Talk of Court news”

There were but threein the boat, but the boat was overburdened Not that the dog was big, or the men either It was all on account of the day

It was a day in which you wanted the whole real butterflies was it--so beas, so wondrously calm and clear You felt selfish at the pleasure of it all It filled you well-nigh to surfeit, yet you would have more of it It was too delicious to squander upon others, yet how could one randeur of it all?

The white boat drifted on a blue and lustrous sea The reef points tapped aof the gaff Listlessly the boat drifted to the barely perceptible swell, regular as the breathings of a sleeping child Sound and reen and purple, the soft sweet atlory of a rare day, kept all the senses in tune

There, 4 miles away, lay the island, and close at hand the turtle were ever and anon rising, balloon-like, frohts of air, which not even the salty essences of the ocean could rob of its perfume

Sometimes the boat did seem conscious of inconstancy, and anon with fe round to flirt with the islets close at hand She would have her oay until the free breezes came, and somehow the wind still blohereso'er it listeth, and will not be untih the sailor whistles with all the ”lascivious pleasing of the lute”

Soether beyond idle concern, lifted the islands afar off out of the water, suspending theradually changed to silver, and under the purple islands the silver band extended, bright and gleaain into the blue of the sky That was so, for was it not all visible--the purple islands, with the silver bands separating them from the sea Yet under ordinary conditions those very islands are blue studs set in the riic is it that uplifts them to-day between the ocean and the sky?

This was a day of gushi+ng sunshi+ne and myriads of butterflies They flew fro processionstillness thehuay inconsequence, steering a course of ”slanting indeterminates,” yet full of the power and the passion of the moment They flitted between the idle boo sky in all the sizes that distance grades between nearness and infinity

There were Islands near at hand and souided thehted creatures--I know not If wind had coed, the myriad host of resplendent creatures would have been scattered and millions beaten down into the sea, above which they fleith such airy levity

What instinct guided the frail, unreflective creatures acrossbutterflies

In their variety, too, they were entertaining In great nus are compact of transparencies and purple blotches In this full, fierce light the purple is black and the transparencies all steel-like glitter They ca nor end All the sky glittered inged old and black creature, accoaily decorated al blue, that can flit as idly as any of the order, and yet dart in and out of the jungle and over the tree-tops, with s-like swiftness Rarely in the throng ca hibiscus envious of its colour; but the little yelloanderers,” ever busy and active, ca journey, and soold--on the white sail

There was no end to the flight The air was too full One wearied of the ceaseless panoraay bejewelled insects They were the possessors of the pri Beautiful and frail, and inconsequent as they were, you envied theers of water and air, flying up in the full blaze of the sun--eager, joyous, unconcerned In the boat ere coroves, and compare enforced inactivity with the blithesome freedom of the weakest butterfly

Occasionally a turtle would bob up froht of the sail, with a bubbling gulp, disappear, the white splash creating concentric rings of ripples But the breeze came not, and the disorderly procession of butterflies, miles broad, passed on