Mrs. Pigeon nestled her face close to that of her little daughter, and soon afterwards died peacefully.
Then, for the first time, Mr. Pigeon seemed to awake to the reality of things. Kneeling by the side of his wife, he called softly, "Emma! Emma!" And receiving no answer, shook her gently, and smoothed the hair from her white face.
"Be comforted," said Joshua to him.
"Comforted!" he repeated with a pondering look, as if he were considering what meaning there was in the word. He kissed her passionately, and whispered something in her ear, and waited for the answer that could not come. "My God!" he cried suddenly, "she is dead!"
Minnie placed Little Emma before him, thinking that the sight of his little girl might lessen his grief; but he took no notice of the child, and sat the whole day nursing, the dead body of his wife in his lap. One tin of preserved meat was all that remained now of their stock of provisions. They brought his small share to him; but he motioned them away impatiently and fretfully. They went to him, and endeavored to make him understand that, for the sake of the others, he should allow the remains of his wife to be placed in their poor shroud of sacking; but he met them savagely, and threatened to bite at them and strangle them if they did not let him alone.
"For the sharks to eat," he whispered to the inanimate form; "they want to throw you into the sea for the sharks to eat, my darling. But I'll tear their hearts out before they part us."
When the silver crescent looked down again upon the despairing group, Joshua tried once more to comfort the man, and said, with a heavy heart, that perhaps at the last moment a ship might pick them up. But though he uttered the words, he did not believe in them.
"And if it does," muttered Mr. Pigeon hoarsely, "what do I care now? You don't know what it is to lose the woman you love." He staggered to his feet with the beloved form in his arm. "You want to take her from me; that is why you speak the lying words. But nothing shall part us--nothing."
Her face was lying upon his shoulder, and her fair hair was hanging loosely down over his breast. He took some of the hair in his mouth; and as Joshua saw him standing thus in the moon's light, he thought he had never seen a picture so utterly despairing. Thus the man stood, motionless, for a time, until the captain's lady crept to his side, and tried to console him. Poor thing! she was terribly weak, and the words came from her lips slowly and wearily. He gazed at her vacantly while she spoke, then turned his eyes to his dead wife.
"Emma," he said, "don't fear; nothing that they say shall make me give you up. We will go together--we will go together."