After a pause, Bartelot said:
"We must give the old man a Christian burial, for we can't shove off to the ship, and leave him lying there like a dead gull."
He looked at his watch, and then at the sun, and added:
"We have two hours yet before sunset; the calm still holds—not a breath of air on land or sea—and the ship is lying yonder like a log. Run to the boat, Noah, shove off to her, and bid the men stretch well on their oars, as we have no time to lose. Bring Ben Plank, the carpenter, ashore, with some boards to make a coffin; bring a shovel, and my prayer-book, for the English burial service. He wouldn't have believed in it much, perhaps, poor man! but 'twill serve his turn now, as well as another, I hope. Look sharp, old fellow."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Tom, twitching his forelock, and hastening to the creek where the boat lay, with its occupants smoking listlessly in the sunshine, and wondering "what the deuce the skipper was up to in that 'ere island," till Noah enlightened them by a yarn of his own, about the "ould darvish or anchor-right they had found a-drifting from his moorings, and dying all his self," information that made them lay out on their oars, which flashed brightly as the sharp gig shot over the sunlit sea.
Some time elapsed, however, before she came off again; for, though the ship, influenced by a gentle undercurrent, had drifted nearer the shore, she was still three miles distant.
When the gig's head was turned to the island, the Princess had her ensign half hoisted at the gaff peak by Morrison's order, in honour of the funeral ceremony that was to be performed on shore, and the crew were all clustered in the tops and on the cross-trees, with their faces turned in that direction.
The gig soon steered into the wooded creek again, bringing the carpenter, with two large packing boxes, his hammer, saw, and nails; Noah brought a shovel, and while the former proceeded to make a rude coffin, the latter, with Morley, working by turns with their jackets off, dug a grave for the hermit, in a place chosen by Bartelot, under a magnificent myrtle.
In an hour all the preparations were completed; he was coffined, and lowered by some of the boat tackle into his last resting-place.
With that reverence of which seamen are seldom devoid, Tom Bartelot stood bare-headed at the head of the humble grave, and read the burial services of the Church of England, Morley making the responses.