SINGLE-HANDEDNESS 175 



but little noise, thinking that his sleep was the sleep of a day, 

 not the sleep of eternity that no earthly din may disturb. 



The weather was still boisterous, but it was essential to 

 take the body to Bowen, to render unto the authorities 

 there conclusive evidence that death had been the result of 

 natural causes. My visitor's nerves were then virile. But 

 the time of stress and strain was at hand. He found him- 

 self alone on a remote island. A grim responsibility forced 

 upon him. Awful as the duty was, it had to be courage- 

 ously faced, and performed as tenderly as might be. 

 Instead of the enjoyment of comfort and rest, and days of 

 busy companionship and revivifying hopes, there was the 

 shock that sudden death inflicts, dramatic loneliness, dry- 

 eyed grief, forced exertion, and the abandonment of 

 brightening prospects. 



With pain and infinite labour he succeeded in dragging 

 and rolling the corpse to the beach. Thence he pushed it 

 up a plank on to the deck of the cutter, and leaving his 

 possessions to chance and fate, he, the wearied and bereaved 

 one-armed man, set sail in violent weather across the open 

 sea to the nearest port. At midnight the " great cry " of a 

 hurricane arose. Lightning flashed over the stricken yeasty 

 sea. A lonesome and grim quest this full of peril. Did 

 not Nature in the trumpet tones of a furious and vengeful 

 spirit decree the destruction of the little boat as she bounced 

 and floundered among the crests of those awful waves? 

 Here was booty belonging to the ocean prey escaping from 

 the talons of the fiercest and most remorseless of harpies. 

 So they shrieked and swarmed about the boat, howling for 

 what was theirs. The strife was great, but not too great 

 for the lonely man's seamanship. All the fiends of the sea 

 might do their worst, but until the actual finale came, he 

 would sail the boat lifting her on the swell, eluding the 

 white hissing bulk of the following sea. 



When at last the boat ran into port, the sea had gained 

 a moral victory, but the man gave to the authorities the 

 mortal remains of his mate to be buried decently on 

 land. 



