Ah! but the tears were flowing fast from their eyes. Poor James was dead!
Book Three—Chapter Twelve.
Leaves from First Mate Tandy’s Log.
Like all the other dead, poor James Malone received the honours of a sailor’s burial on the very next day.
But, unlike the rest, he was not slipped over the cliff.
On the contrary, Halcott determined he should rest far out in the blue, lone sea, where nothing might disturb his rest until “the crack of doom.” The last words were those of Halcott himself.
So the lightest boat was dragged all the way to the beach, and there, with the body sewn up in a hammock and covered with a red flag, it was launched.
There had been no return of the earthquake, but all the previous night flames and smoke had issued from Fire Hill, and no one doubted that an eruption on a vast scale was imminent. There was, however, no danger in leaving little Nelda and her brother alone in the hulk with Janeira and Chips—who was already able to walk—for the savages were far away, indeed, by this time. So Tandy accompanied Halcott, and with them went the others—only five in all.