"I'm sorry for the poor children."
"Yes, and I'm sorry for the Corporal; he's a brave soldier and has promise of promotion. But it will be hard for him with his wife dead and his children away. What is more, sweetheart, I'm sorry for Mrs. Manning, who will have one woman less to go with her on her long journey."
"You foolish fellow, I'm all right." But she tightened her clasp upon his arm and cuddled closer.
"Of course you are, and the dearest woman that ever lived. But Mrs. Jenkins would have been a help to you."
"Oh, do send the chaplain, please!" she interrupted in trembling accents.
"Yes, dearest," and kissing her at the door of their stateroom, he hastened away on his errand.
CHAPTER VII.
The next day was Sunday, but a sad day on the North King; for it was known by daybreak throughout the long line of bunks in the forecastle, that the woman was dead.
The rugged tars, inured to the vicissitudes of warfare and the hardships of a never ending life on the sea, would have thought nothing of dropping a man overboard—"for what is a man more than a sheep?" And the brave soldiers, who time and again had rolled a fallen comrade hastily into a hole to keep his body from falling into the hands of the enemy, would only have been putting one more man out of sight. But this was a woman, the wife of a fellow-soldier, who had dared to leave her children that she might be with her husband and his comrades through all the terrors of a long winter march. The conditions were different. In importance there was no comparison. And when Chaplain Evans, after reading morning prayers on that still December morning, announced that the funeral service would be at three o'clock in the afternoon, there were long lines of compressed lips and rigid features as well. All hearts were softened. By-and-bye all was over, and the sealed bag was dropped into the ocean. Then the men lined up and one by one grasped the Corporal by the hand, mutely telling him of their love and sympathy. It was all the poor fellow could stand. Perhaps it was bad form. They had never had a similar experience to guide them. But it told Corporal Jenkins that their hearts were true; and after the last clasp he strode away by himself to shed silent tears over his lost wife and motherless bairns.