"There will be no need to bury him," said I.
"No need and no time, sir. I trust God'll be merciful to the poor sailor when he's called up. He was made bad by them others, sir. His heart wasn't wrong," replied the boatswain.
I procured a blanket from the forecastle and covered the body with it, and we then walked back to the poop slowly and without speaking.
I felt the death of this man keenly. He had worked well, confronted danger cheerfully; he had atoned, in his untutored fashion, for the wrongs he had taken a part in—besides, the fellowship of peril was a tie upon us all, not to be sundered without a pang, which our hearts never would have felt had fate dealt otherwise with us.
I stopped a moment with the boatswain to look at the steward before joining Miss Robertson. To many, I believe this spectacle of idiocy would have been more affecting than Cornish's death. He was tracing figures, such as circles and crosses, with his fore finger on the deck, smiling vacantly meanwhile, and now and then looking around him with rolling, unmeaning eyes.
"How is it with you, my man?" I said.
He gazed at me very earnestly, rose to his feet, and, taking my arm, drew me a short distance away from the boatswain.
"A ship passed us just now, sir," he exclaimed in a whisper, and with a profoundly confidential air. "Did you see her?"
"Yes, steward, I saw her."
"A word in your ear, sir—mum! that's the straight tip. Do you see? I was tired of this ship, sir—tired of being afraid of drowning. I put myself on board that vessel, and there I am now, sir. But hush! do you know I cannot talk to them—they're furriners! Roosians, sir, by the living cock! that's my oath, and it crows every morning in my back garden."