At breakfast Ethel and her sister were informed that Mr. Manfredi had fallen overboard in the night, and been drowned. No hint of foul play was given them, at their father's special request; but they wept and mourned for the poor young fellow, of whom they now recalled to memory so many pleasing traits and anecdotes; among others, the sad story of his little brother, Attilio, who had been so savagely shot by the Austrians at Pistoja.
His seat at table, his place in the cabin were empty; his face and form were no longer seen, and his step and voice were no longer heard.
The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed most difficult of realisation; and the words of Dana, in a passage of one of his works, which Dr. Heriot pointed out to Rose, came painfully and truthfully home to all their hearts.
"Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and the mourners go about the streets; but, when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event which gives it an air of awful mystery. Then at sea you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own; but one is suddenly taken from among them, and they miss him at every turn. There are no new forms or faces to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one more wanting when the small night-watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form and the sound of his voice—for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss."
"So we shall never see him again—never!" said Ethel, with her eyes full of tears; "so kind, good, and gentle."
"And so handsome, too!" added Rose.
"A better seaman never trod a deck," sighed Mr. Quail.
"Damnation!" was the singular addendum of Captain Phillips, through his clenched teeth, when thinking of the secret he had not revealed, and the crime which, as yet, he dared not attempt to punish.
So Ethel put past "I Promessi Sposi," which had Manfredi's name written on the fly-leaf of the first volume, as the relic of a friend with whom she had spent many happy hours, whom she never more could see, and on whose vast tomb, the boundless ocean, she almost shuddered to look—for was not Morley Ashton sleeping there too?
So the gloomy day passed slowly on, and night came on.