The After House

I went up on deck.

A curious spectacle revealed itself. Turner, purple with anger,

was haranguing the men, who stood amidships, huddled together, but

grim and determined withal. Burns, a little apart from the rest,

was standing, sullen, his arms folded. As Turner ceased, he took

a step forward.

"You are right, Mr. Turner," he said. "It's your ship, and it's

up to you to say where she goes and how she goes, sir. But some

one will hang for this, Mr. Turner,--some one that's on this deck

now; and the bodies are going back with us--likewise the axe. There

ain't going to be a mistake--the right man is going to swing."

"That's mutiny!"

"Yes, sir," Burns acknowledged, his face paling a little. "I guess

you could call it that."

Turner swung on his heel and went below, where Jones, relieved of

guard duty by Burns, reported him locked in his room, refusing

admission to his wife and Miss Lee, both of whom had knocked on the

door.

The trouble with Turner added to the general misery of the situation.

Burns got our position at noon with more or less exactness, and the

general working of the Ella went on well enough. But the situation

was indescribable. Men started if a penknife dropped, and swore if

a sail flapped. The call of the boatswain's pipe rasped their ears,

and the preparation for stowing the bodies in the jolly-boat left

them unnerved and sick. Some sort of a meal was cooked, but no one

could eat; Williams brought up, untasted, the luncheon he had carried

down to the after house.

At two o'clock all hands gathered amidships, and the bodies were

carried forward to where the boat, lowered in its davits and braced,

lay on the deck. It had been lined with canvas and tarpaulin, and

a cover of similar material lay ready to be nailed in place. All

the men were bareheaded. Many were in tears. Miss Lee came forward

with us, and it was from her prayer-book that I, too moved for

self-consciousness, read the burial-service.

"I am the resurrection and the life," I read huskily.

The figures at my feet, in their canvas shrouds, rolled gently with

the rocking of the ship; the sun beat down on the decks, on the bare

heads of the men, on the gilt edges of the prayer-book, gleaming in

the light, on the last of the land-birds, drooping in the heat on

the main cross-trees.

". . . For man walketh in a vain shadow," I read, "and disquieteth

himself in vain . . . .

"O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go

hence, and be no more seen."