All the hands were mustered on deck, the engineers and stokers stopping their busy repairing work below, which they had kept at night and day without intermission ever since our breakdown, and coming up with the rest of the crew to pay the last tribute of respect to their departed comrade, even Mr Stokes, though he was still in a very weak state of health and had his head and broken arm bandaged up, insisting on being present, Garry O’Neil and Stoddart supporting him between them for the purpose.
Then the body of the unfortunate fireman, enclosed in a hammock covered by the ship’s ensign and having a pig of ballast tied to the feet to ensure its submersion, was brought up from the cabin where he had died, and placed on a plank by the gangway where the waves had washed away our bulwarks, leaving a wide open space.
Captain Applegarth read over the remains the beautiful prayers of the Church Service appointed for the burial of those who die at sea, all of us standing bareheaded around.
A faint gleam of light from the setting sun, away on our port bow, shone through a mist of cloud that obscured the horizon to windward; and, as this disappeared, the skipper came to the end of the viaticum, when, at a signal from the boatswain, the plank was tipped and poor Jackson’s body was committed to the deep with a sigh of regret at his untimely end, and the devout hope that though his earthly voyage had been cut short, he might yet reach that haven where there are no accidents nor shipwrecks, and where seas swallow not up, or stormy winds blow!
Some little while after this a slight breeze sprang up from the southward and westward, bringing a cool feeling with it, and I shivered as I stood on the bridge looking out over the dark waste of waters, feeling rather melancholy, if the truth be told.
“That’s a bad sign, Master Haldane,” said old Masters close to my ear, making me jump, for I did not know he was there. “They say that when a ship chap shivers like that there, it be meaning that somebody or summit be a-walking over his grave!”
“Stave that, bo’sun!” I cried impatiently. “You’re a regular old Jonah, and enough to give a fellow the creeps!”
“Ah, you may try to laugh it off, Mister Haldane,” he retorted in his lugubrious way. “But, as I says to ye last night, says I, when that poor chap kicked the bucket as we’ve just been a-burying on, we ain’t seen the end on it yet. I misdoubts the weather, too, sir. There’s a great bank of cloud now rising up to win’ard, and I fancies I heard jist now the sound o’ thunder ag’in.”
“Thunder?” I exclaimed. “Nonsense!”
“No, Mister Haldane, it ain’t no nonsense,” said the old fellow solemnly. “You ain’t known me to croak afore without re’sin, and I tells ye I don’t likes the look o’ things to-night. There’s summit a-brewin’ up over there, or I’m a Dutchman!”