Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/91

Death by land is a sobering thing and works many changes; but to my thought death at sea is more terrible, for there is a vast loneliness, with only a single ship in the midst of it, and an empty hammock for days and weeks and even months, to keep a man in mind of what has happened; and death at sea may work as many changes as death by land.

Now the Rose of Devon was a week from England when a footrope parted and the boatswain pitched down, clutching at the great belly of the sail, and plunged out of sight. And what could a man do to save him? They never saw him after that first wild plunge. There, aloft, was the parted rope, its ends frayed out and hanging. Below decks was the empty berth. The blustering old boatswain, with his great roaring voice and his quick ear for a tune, had gone upon the ultimate adventure which all must face, each man for himself; but they only said, “Did you see the wild look in his eyes when he fell?” And, “I fear we shall hear his pipe of nights.” And, "’T is a queer thought that Neddie Hart is to lie in old Davy Jones’s palace, with the queer sea-women all about him, a-waiting for his old shipmates.”

Presently the master’s boy came forward into the forecastle, where the men off duty were sitting and talking of the one who had fallen so far, had sunk so deep,