The body was instantly borne into a stateroom by the attendants; and Griffith and Barnstable supported their brides into the after-cabin, where they left them seated on the sofa that lined the stern of the ship, weeping bitterly, in each other's arms.
No part of the preceding scene had been unobserved by Boltrope, whose small, hard eyes were observed by the young men to twinkle, when they returned into the state apartment; and they approached their wounded comrade to apologize for the seeming neglect that their conduct had displayed.
“I heard you were hurt, Boltrope,” said Griffith, taking him kindly by the hand; “but as I know you are not unused to being marked by shot, I trust we shall soon see you again on deck.”
“Ay, ay,” returned the master, “you'll want no spy glasses to see the old hulk as you launch it into the sea. I have had shot, as you say, before now to tear my running-gear, and even to knock a splinter out of some of my timbers; but this fellow has found his way into my bread-room; and the cruise of life is up!”
“Surely the case is not so bad, honest David,” said Barnstable; “you have kept afloat, to my knowledge, with a bigger hole in your skin than this unlucky hit has made!”
“Ay, ay,” returned the master, “that was in my upper works, where the doctor could get at it with a plug; but this chap has knocked away the shifting-boards, and I feel as if the whole cargo was broken up. You may say that Tourniquet rates me all the same as a dead man; for after looking at the shot-hole, he has turned me over to the parson here, like a piece of old junk which is only fit to be worked up into something new. Captain Munson had a lucky time of it! I think you said, Mr. Griffith, that the old gentleman was launched overboard with everything standing, and that Death made but one rap at his door, before he took his leave!”
“His end was indeed sudden!” returned Griffith; “but it is what we seamen must expect.”
“And for which there is so much the more occasion to be prepared,” the chaplain ventured to add, in a low, humble, and, perhaps, timid voice.
The sailing-master looked keenly from one to the other as they spoke; and, after a short pause, he continued, with an air of great submission:
“'Twas his luck; and I suppose it is sinful to begrudge a man his lawful luck. As for being prepared, parson, that is your business, and not mine; therefore, as there is but little time to spare, why, the sooner you set about it the better: and, to save unnecessary trouble I may as well tell you not to strive to make too much of me; for, I must own it to my shame, I never took learning kindly. If you can fit me for some middling berth in the other world, like the one I hold in this ship, it will suit me as well, and, perhaps, be easier to all hands of us.”