142 The Lonely Man of the Ocean. [FEB. 



was more often the case dispossessed of their former occupiers, who 

 had chosen rather to breathe their last above deck. But a veil shall be 

 drawn over this fearful scene. It is enough to say that not one living 

 being was found amid the corrupted wrecks of mortality which tenanted 

 the silent, heated, and pestiferous wards of the inner decks. Loeffler 

 was ALONE in the ship ! His task was then decided. He could only 

 consign his former companions to their wide and common grave. He 

 essayed to lift a corpse ; but sick, gasping, and completely overcome 

 sank upon his very burden ! It was evident he must wait until his 

 strength were further restored ; but to wait amid those heaps of decaying 

 bodies seemed impossible. 



Night sank upon the waters. The GERMAN began to stir in the soul 

 of Loeffler. He was alone the stillness so unbroken as to be startling. 

 Perhaps within a thousand miles there might be no living human being. 

 He felt himself a solitary, vital thing among heaps of dead, whose corpses, 

 here and there, emitted the phosphoric light of putrescence. He started 

 at every creak of the vessel, and sometimes fancied that he descried, 

 through the darkness, the well-known and reanimate face of some 

 departed shipmate. But Christian's was not a mind to succumb to a 

 terror which, it must be confessed, might under similar circumstances 

 have overborne the stoutest heart. He felt that, under all these dis- 

 advantages, his strength was returning in a manner that appeared almost 

 miraculous ; and that same night saw many an appalling wreck of huma- 

 nity consigned to decent oblivion. Sometimes the heart of Loeffler half 

 sunk within him ; sometimes he was more than tempted to relinquish his 

 work in despair ; yet on he toiled with that energy of body which as 

 much results from mental power as from physical superiority. 



On the evening of the following day, but one human form tenanted 

 that deserted ship. As he saw the last of her gallant crew sink beneath 

 the waves, Christian fell on his knees, and well acquainted with the 

 mother tongue of his departed companions he took the sacred ritual 

 of their church in his hand. The sun was setting, and by its parting 

 beams Loeffler, with steady and solemn voice as if there were those 

 might hear the imposing service read aloud the burial-rites of the 

 church of England. Scarcely had he pronounced the concluding bless- 

 ing ere the sun sank, and the instantaneous darkness of a tropical night 

 succeeded. Loeffler cast a farewell glance on the dun waves, and then 

 sighed, (c Rest rest, brave companions ! until a voice shall sound 

 stronger than your deep slumber until the sea give up its dead, and you 

 rise to meet your Judge !" The noise of the sharks dashing from the 

 waters, to see if yet more victims awaited their insatiable jaw, was the 

 only response to the obsequies of that gallant crew, which had now dis- 

 appeared for ever. 



A few sails were still furled, and, uncertain whether they were the 

 best or the worst that might be noisted, Loeffler determined to leave 

 them, preferring the chance that should waft him to any port, to the 

 prolonged imprisonment of the Invincible. 



Christian sank down, as he concluded his strange and dismal office, 

 completely overwhelmed by physical exertions and the intensity of his 

 hitherto-stifled feelings. But there was no hand to wipe the dew from 

 his pale forehead ; no voice to speak a word of encouragement or symi 

 pathy. 



And where was it all to end ? ^oeffler was no seaman ; and, there- 



