‘Bless me!’ cried I with a start, ‘I had forgotten all about it. Small wonder that we and our troubles should be compared to sparks that fly upwards, for we are extinguished in a breath and clean forgotten.’ I glanced at the tarpaulin on the hatchway with an ugly shuddering recollection coming upon me of the face of the man as I had last viewed him dead in his bunk. ‘No,’ said I; ‘I am unable to tell you when they mean to bury him. The sooner the better, I should say.’
‘True for you, sir,’ he answered; ‘here are some of our chaps swearing that they had bad dreams last night, all a-owing to this here dead man a-lying here. The fact is Crabb wasn’t no favourite, and since he’s made his hexit, as the saying is, the men want him gone for true.’
As he said this, the third-mate, Mr. Playford, came forward singing out for the boatswain.
‘Here, sir,’ answered Smallridge in a voice like the low of a calf.
The officer crossed the hatch, taking care to give the heap under the tarpaulin a wide berth.
‘Funeral’s to take place at four bells, bo’sun,’ said he.—‘Good morning, Mr. Dugdale. All hands to be cleaned up and attend. Pity there’s no more wind, Mr. Dugdale. The trades are consumedly slow of coming. Four bells, bo’sun, d’ye hear? All hands—the big ensign—four pall-bearers,’ he added with a grin—‘everything to be ship-shape and in Bristol fashion—to please the ladies,’ he added, looking at me with one eye shut.
‘Well, now you know all about it, Mr. Smallridge,’ said I, and walked aft with Mr. Playford; and the breakfast-bell then sounding, I entered the cuddy and took my place.
I had thought to catch a glance, perhaps one glance, during the meal from Miss Temple, who might probably recollect her few words with me on the preceding evening, and her cool trick of sliding off to let me talk aloud to myself. But she never turned her eyes my way. She sometimes spoke across the table to Mr. Colledge, once inclined her fine figure towards Captain Keeling to respond to some remark of his, and occasionally exchanged a sentence with her aunt. But the rest of us might have been as much hidden as the body of Crabb was forward, for all the attention she honoured us with.
‘I am glad that this funeral is going to take place,’ Mr. Johnson said to me. ‘I have promised a friend of mine who owns a newspaper in London a series of articles on this voyage, and down to this time I haven’t quite seen my way. For what has happened proper to tell? Dash my wig! saving that collision, of which I couldn’t make head nor tail, and dare not therefore attempt, what ghost of an incident good for what I may call word-painting has occurred?’
‘This burial should give you the chance you want,’ said I.