"But our poor friend was a heavy man and of a full habit. He is already becoming cold. No breath—no pulsation," added Heriot, placing his hand on Mr. Basset's heart.
"Quite dead, you think?" asked Morley, whose eyes filled with tears, as the memory of happy years long past, and sincere pity for the two girls, rushed into his mind.
"Beyond hope, I fear," muttered Heriot, who, however, still continued, mechanically, as it were, to feel the pulse and chafe the rigid limbs.
"The scoundrels—the black-hearted scoundrels! Oh, to have revenge for all this!" exclaimed Captain Phillips, stamping his feet on the cabin floor.
"Our numbers decrease. First we lost poor Manfredi, then Joe, the steward, then Sam Quail, and now Mr. Basset," said Foster, the second mate; "whose turn will it be next?"
"Hush!—remember the young ladies," said Heriot, looking up, warningly.
Cold nearly, ghastly pale, where not livid and discoloured, and rendered horrible in feature by past convulsions, poor Mr. Basset's case seemed, indeed, hopeless; yet Leslie Heriot, inspired by his love for Rose, by perhaps something of the dogged perseverance of his country, by the regard he really bore Mr. Basset, and an enthusiasm for his profession, with a reliance on his own skill, which was by no means small; imbued, we say, by all these, he felt inclined to attempt something unusual in his art, and proceeded at once to put it in practice.
As the idea of struggling with death, of restoring life and animation to that still and corpse-like form, occurred to him, a sudden light shone in the handsome young doctor's eyes; his cheek flushed, and there was a charming brightness and animation in all his features, as he bustled about, and unlocked the medicine-chest and case of instruments.
"At all events I will try, I will try," he muttered to himself; "in great attempts 'tis glorious e'en, to fail."
He perceived that blood oozed out from a cut in the forehead, received when the body of their victim was flung by the mutineers through the skylight into the cabin.