DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW
THE mirthfulness which at times reigned among us was in strange and
shocking contrast with the situation of some of the invalids. Thus at
least did it seem to me, though not to others.
But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing by far the
most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less grating to my
feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.
We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the sick who had
rapidly grown worse, died one night within an hour of each other.
One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several days had not
risen from it. During this period he was often delirious, starting
up and glaring around him, and sometimes wildly tossing his arms.
On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle watch
began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt something
clammy resting on me. It was the sick man's hand. Two or three times
during the evening previous, he had thrust it into my bunk, and I had
quietly removed it; but now I started and flung it from me. The arm
fell stark and stiff, and I knew that he was dead.
Waking the men, the corpse was immediately rolled up in the strips of
blanketing upon which it lay, and carried on deck. The mate was then
called, and preparations made for an instantaneous' burial.
