The boatswain went to the tarpaulin, pulled it aside, and examined the two dead faces.
'Dead they are,' said he, with a shiver of sick disgust.
He walked forward, and presently a few of the men came to the tarpaulin, carrying hammocks, twine, sinkers for the clews. They made despatch. Captain Glew, blind with death, threatened them as malevolently as in life, with his upper lip lifted and stiffened, exposing a snarling grin of fangs. The other poor wretch lay composed; the grog-blossoms had faded. His cheek was as pale as moonlight, and the expression was a smile.
Before stitching up the bodies, they emptied the pockets. Captain Glew had a silver watch and chain, a leather pocket-book, a silver-mounted, wooden pipe, a bunch of keys, and other odds and ends. The mate likewise owned a watch and a hair chain, tipped with gold—a woman's gift, no doubt.
'These things shall be put into their cabins,' said the boatswain. 'He's left a widow and young uns.'
'Are we going to bury 'em in their clothes?' said Toole.
'Holes and all,' answered Legg, with a significant glance at the sheath-knife on the Irishman's hip.
In a few minutes the two bodies made their last plunge, amidst the silence of the seamen, some of whom, nevertheless, continued to smoke, and the bubbles which flashed to the surface were as lasting a memorial of the dead twain's resting-place as any gravestone which could have been erected ashore for dogs to smell at.
A light air from the south-west was coming along, over the burnished heave, in a delicate blue film, with feelers and crawlers of the draught tarnishing the water in front of the breeze-line in catspaws.
'Shall we stick this vessel's head north?' said the boatswain, and now all hands came together in the gangway close beside the bulwark-rail, whence the bodies had sped; there was to be a discussion over every suggestion.