Death of James.
The morning of the victory was a sad enough one in the camp of the Crusoes.
The enemy was routed, the king was slain. For a time, at least, there would be a cessation of strife. For how long no one troubled himself to consider; sorrow seemed everywhere, on board and in the camp around.
Poor James lay on a mattress on deck. Perhaps he was the only man that smiled or seemed happy. He knew, and Halcott knew too, that he could not last for many days, so grievously was he wounded.
Halcott, I need not say, was constant in his attendance on him, and so too was little Nelda.
The girl would sit for hours beside him, sometimes reading childish stories to him, which she felt certain, in her own mind, would help to make him better. Or she would gently pat his weather-beaten face, saying, as she did so, “Poor uncle James! poor dear uncle! Never mind! never mind!”
The dead were tenderly wrapped in hammocks which were heavily loaded. Theirs would be a sailor’s grave. Halcott himself read the beautiful words of the English Church service, the few that were now left of the brave crew of the Sea Flower kneeling bareheaded beside the bodies of their late comrades; more than one was weeping.
“We commit their bodies to the deep,
And their souls to Him who gave them.”
Their shipmates just patted the hammocks, before they let them slide, in a way that was very pathetic; then down, one by one, over the cliff they dropped—
“To lie where pearls lie deep.”