"She remained in bed during the remainder of our voyage, evidently in a rapid decline, and on the day when we made the south-west cape of Van Diemen's Land—a high, bold, and rocky promontory—she expired.
"We were soon within six miles of the land, and her parents begged so hard that they might be permitted to bury the poor girl ashore, that our skipper acceded to their request. Assisted by the sailmaker, they wrapped her up in blankets, and her body was placed on a grating along the thwarts of the long-boat amidships, with a union-jack spread over it. No other pall had we, nor could we have found a better for a heart so true as that poor lassie once possessed; and there she lay when we entered the mouth of the Derwent river, and worked against a head wind up D'Entrecasteaux's Channel.
"I see that I am tiring you, Morley, with this long yarn; but Miss Basset is still below, and the strangest part is yet to come.
"We got aground on the western side of the channel, but ran an anchor out, manned the capstan, and hove the ship off. At half-past nine that night we came to anchor in thirty-fathom water, off Hobart Town, fired a gun, and furled our canvas, with the ensign at our gaff-peak half hoisted, to show that death had boarded us before the harpies of the custom-house.
"By daybreak next day I was ordered with a gang to prepare for breaking bulk, and proceeded to unship the main-hatch prior to starting the cargo.
"On removing a bale or two, and a few casks, how great was our horror to find, just abaft the mainmast, and under that portion of the deck where Hester Udny had twice seen the figure of flame—a figure perhaps always there, though invisible to us—the skeleton of a man, standing quite erect against the after-bulkhead!
"He was dressed in a gray tweed suit, with a blue bonnet, surmounted by a red tuft, and a checked Border plaid was over his right shoulder. All the flesh had dried upon his bones, so that his clothes hung loosely on him. A few blackened shillings, and a mouldy letter or two, were found in his pockets, so we at once supposed that, being unable to pay his passage, the poor fellow had secreted himself in the hold, little knowing how the cargo would be screwed and stowed up to the beams, and how hermetically the hatches would be closed by battens, tarpaulins, and iron bands; and thus he had perished miserably, unheard, unseen, and unknown—perished of suffocation, and remained there until he dried into a veritable white mummy.
"Our commiseration was greatly increased when we found that the mouldy green letters were written by Hester Udny, and in the poor stowaway her parents recognised her lover, Willie, the lad whom we had all seen hovering about her on the night we hauled out from Greenock to drop down the Clyde.
"They were buried ashore, these two ill-starred and unfortunate lovers, in the burying-ground of the big brick church of Hobart Town, and the whole ship's company attended the funeral. Jack's a rough fellow, Mr. Ashton, but I can assure you that, as we lowered their two plain black coffins into their deep grave, side by side, with a few fathoms of line, there was not a dry eye among us.
"And some of the roughest patted the old father on the back, as he stood dreamily at the head of his daughter's grave, in that far foreign land—sae far frae the Hills o' Campsie, and wondering if it could a' be true, and that she was lying there, while tears streamed down his cheeks, and his white hair waved i' the wind under his auld blue bonnet."