“God allows all those who turn to Him, and place their faith in the all-perfect atonement of His blessed Son, to come boldly to the throne of grace, without the intervention of any human being,” he said.
“I see! I see!” said the dying man. “What a blessed truth is that! How dreadful would otherwise be our fate out here on the ocean, without the possibility of getting a priest to whom to confess our sins.”
I, of course, give a mere outline of what I heard, and cannot pretend to translate exactly what they said. José, however, appeared much comforted.
The wind had by this time entirely gone down, and the sea was becoming smoother and smoother. At length night came on. José still breathed; but he was speechless, though I think he understood what was said. Either Arthur or Tim sat by him, while Marian and I supported our father. Uncle Paul, overcome by fatigue, had gone to sleep. Just as the sun rose, José breathed his last. Our father, who had slept for some time, by this time appeared greatly refreshed; and after he had taken some food, a little water, and an orange, he was able to sit up, and we began to hope that he would recover. We did not tell him of José’s death, but soon his eye fell on the bow of the boat. “God is indeed merciful, to have spared me. I might have been like that poor man,” he observed.
We waited till Uncle Paul awoke, to learn what to do, and he at once said that we must bury poor José. I sat with Marian in the stern of the boat, while Uncle Paul and Tim lifted José’s body up to the side; and the latter fastened a piece of stone, which served as ballast, to his feet. Our uncle having uttered an earnest prayer that we might all be preserved, they then let the corpse drop gently into the water, where it quickly disappeared beneath the surface. It was a sad sight, and poor Marian looked on with horror in her countenance. I wished that she could have been spared the spectacle.
Our stock of provisions and water would now last us scarcely a couple of days, and no land was in sight. Uncle Paul calculated, however, that we must be some fifteen or twenty leagues to the south-east of Cape Galeota, the most southern point of Trinidad. The brown colour of the water also showed that we were off the mouth of the mighty Orinoco, though probably many leagues away from it. Had we possessed our full strength and four oars, we might in time have reached the shore; but, weak as we were, and with only a couple of oars, we could have but little hope of doing so. We still trusted to falling in with a vessel; but as we gazed round over the glittering surface of the ocean, not a sail appeared. While the calm lasted, none indeed could approach us; and too probably, before a breeze would spring up, our scanty stock of provisions might be exhausted.
“Cheer up, my friends; let us still trust in God,” said Uncle Paul at length. “It is wrong to give way to despair. There’s One above who watches over us, and orders all for the best.”
“Let us pray to Him, then,” exclaimed Marian, kneeling down; and following the example of the dear girl, we lifted up our voices together for safety and protection.
We all felt comforted, and even our poor father’s countenance looked less downcast than before. That which weighed most on his spirits was, I suspect, the thought that he had been the cause of our being placed in our present position. No one, however, uttered a word of reproach, and we all did our utmost to console him. Arthur tried to speak cheerfully: Tim attempted to sing one of the melodies of his native land, which he had learned in his boyhood; but his voice broke down, and he was well-nigh bursting into tears.
The calm, though very trying, enabled us to obtain the rest we so much required; and the next morning, though suffering from hunger, Uncle Paul was quite himself again.