“Well, we mustn’t grumble,” said Captain Miles after meditating a bit over the damage with a serious face. “Our lives have been spared and the ship floats; so, there you have two things to the good, to balance our account on the other side of the ledger!”
“You’re right, sir,” replied Mr Marline; “but have you sounded her yet to see if we have shipped much water?”
“Aye, I did that a long time ago, while you were dreaming,” said the captain with a chuckle. “Old Adze the carpenter saw to the matter as soon as we righted. She has taken in very little in the main hold; but the fore-peak is full, as I thought, through some careless fellow not putting on the hatch and battening it down again after we got up these new sails. However, we can’t see about clearing it out yet, for the pumps are smashed and it will take Adze all day to-morrow to get them in working order again. Besides, I don’t want the men to do more than is absolutely necessary to-day, for it is Sunday, as I told you before; and we ought, in more ways than one, considering all we have gone through, to observe it as a day of rest.”
“I quite agree with you, sir,” replied Mr Marline; “and if I had not thought so, you would have seen me long ere this on the fo’c’s’le, getting up a jury-mast or something.”
“Let you alone for that,” said Captain Miles. “But, Marline,” he added the next moment, “there is one thing we must do presently. I thought it best to leave it until sunset, before letting all hands turn in and have a good night’s rest; and that is—”
“To bury the steward,” suggested the other.
“You’ve guessed rightly,” said he; “so now, as I see the men taking in their clothes, which are by this time dry enough, I should fancy, from their exposure to the sun and wind, I think I’ll give them a hail.”
This he did; and bye and bye, as the orb of day sank below the sea, the body of Harry, tied up in a piece of tarpaulin and with a heavy piece of chain-cable attached to the feet to make it sink, was committed to the deep, Captain Miles reading the impressive burial service, for those lost at sea, out of a prayer-book which he had recovered from the debris of the cabin and put in his pocket for the purpose.
This was our religious observance of the day. It was a great contrast to the prayers on the poop which we had on the previous Sunday, when the ship, in all the glory of her fine proportions, with her lofty masts towering into the skies, was rolling on the calm bosom of the ocean, with her idle sails spread vainly to the breeze that would not come; now, she was but a battered and dismantled hulk. The breeze we had wished for had come at last and waxed into a strong wind, which had ultimately developed into the hurricane that had done all the mischief—the final result of which was the present burial of our drowned comrade!
“Lads,” cried Captain Miles when he had finished reading the service and the body had disappeared below the surface of the restless sea, “you can go and turn in now, all that like. Mind, you have a good caulk until early to-morrow morning, when you’ll have to rouse out sharp, all hands, for there be lots to be done!”