150 THE CAST-AWAY. 



saying, " It can't be much longer, dearie, — it 

 cant be much longer ! " 



Then was this poor English cooper to be denied 

 even so desolate a resting-place as the sailor's 

 cemetery on Bird Island ? 



And who — I could not help asking — who 

 would be the broken-hearted ones at home ? 

 Who would listen with grief and with tears to 

 the shameful story of the drunken castaway and 

 his tragical end ? Oh, there would be sorrow and 

 mourning in that little English hamlet on the 

 Devonshire coast ! Not tonight, nor tomorrow 

 night ; but a whole year hence, it might be, or 

 even longer, when the tale would be told at home 

 by the very men who had sent the cooper to his 

 doom. 



Darkness settled like a pall upon our dishearten- 

 ing enterprise. The stars, blazing down from 

 that southern sky, glared pitiless and cruel. The 

 moon — red, sullen, mockingly splendid — rose 

 out of the ocean and made a broad, straight path 

 to the horizon. (Out upon that path, the men 

 said, the cooper's canoe had gone.) " Mt. Blanc " 

 loomed black in the far distance. We could still 

 see the lights on the ships in the harbor, though 

 the lights of the town had already sunk into 

 the sea. 



