Puffeigh buried the body with all the puny pomp of an officer's funeral at sea. It mattered little to the noble spirit whether a few meaningless ceremonies were performed or omitted; "his soul was gone aloft," and could not be recalled or affected by the commander's "service."
The sailors were all deeply grieved at the sudden death. Ford had always treated them in a kind and proper manner, and his untimely end was probably as sincerely lamented forward as aft. No man felt more sorrow than his assassin. The remembrance of his own sufferings seemed to have been entirely forgotten by him, so absorbed was he in the recollection of the dreadful crime he had committed. Crushe heaped every kind of insult and torture he could devise upon the man, who bore all with the resignation of a martyr.
Upon one occasion the first lieutenant cursed the prisoner to his face, and observed,
"Ah! you brute, you thought to murder me, did you?"
Upon hearing this the man quietly replied,
"Forgive me, sir—I am sorry for it."
"Forgive you, you hound! Yes—I'll forgive you when you're swinging from the yard-arm."
Instead of checking Crushe in his shameful tyranny, the death of his brother officer seemed to make him perfectly reckless, he doubtless thinking there was now no appeal or chance of hearing for his victims. He never for a moment appeared to remember that Ford's words about "dying for him" were true, and indeed, one day, when discussing the good officer's death, he remarked to Cravan,
"Possibly I should have done the magnanimous had I been in poor Ford's place. He could afford to say, 'Bless you, shipmates,' as he knew very well that his anchor was tripped."
Nosey did not make any reply to this brutal speech, as the mere recollection of the affair made him shudder.