The wind had died away, but the boat rose and sank to the long and heavy swell that billowed the gleaming surface of the sea to the horizon. Far away in the south was an expanse of gray cloud with slanting lines radiating to the sea from it, and a bright square of rainbow embedded in its shadow. It was travelling eastwards, and the rain would not touch the boat. Elsewhere the sky was a bright blue, with here and there clouds of glorious whiteness and majestic bulk—mountains with shining defiles and a splendour of sunshine in their skirts—hanging their swelling forms over the sea. The sun was hot, but then, ever since they had been in the boat, they had been steering more or less south, and, taking the parallels in which the ship had foundered as a starting-point, every degree the boat made southwards would furnish an appreciable change of temperature.
The rum had worked beneficially in Johnson, who now began to stretch his body and look about him.
“Another calm, master,” he said, in a voice to which the dryness of his throat imparted a harsh unnatural tone. “I thought I was dead and gone just now. God help us! I don’t think none of us three’ll live to talk of this here time!”
“We must put that poor body overboard,” said Holdsworth. “It isn’t fit that her child should see her like that. Will you take him for’ard and stand between him and me, so that he can’t see what I’m doing, and talk to him a bit? I almost wish they had both died together. The sight of his sufferings makes mine more than I can bear.”
He stifled a sob, and Johnson getting up languidly and holding on to the gunwale of the boat with one hand, took the boy by the arm and led him into the bows.
Holdsworth slackened off the halliards to lower the sail and screen the after part of the boat from the boy’s sight. He then, with what strength he had, and as quickly as he could, raised the dead body and let it slip over the stern, muttering a simple prayer as he did so, that God would let her meet her child in heaven, where they would never more be parted; and then turned his back upon the water and hid his face in his hands.
At the end of five minutes he stole a glance astern—the body had disappeared.
“Four,” he muttered, “and three more to go! O God, what work—what work this has been!”
His thoughts went to Dolly. If he died, what would become of her? Not for many days yet, even supposing the other boats should make their way to land or be rescued by a passing ship, would the news of the “Meteor’s” loss reach her; and he thought of her praying night and morning for him, straining her fond eyes into the dim future, where the coming summer was, with all its flowers and its sunshine; where the happy day was that should bring him to her. If the news of the shipwreck ever reached her, how would her gentle spirit support the blow! But worse would it be if she remained ignorant of her loss; because in that case she would live on in hope for months and months, wakening every morning with the idea that—To-day he may come! to-day he may come! until hope sickened and despair should bring cruel assurance of eternal separation—the more unendurable because she should not know why he did not come—whether he were living or dead—whether he were true or false to her!