Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/197

 "Very nearly three Lours," he replied. "It's most unfortunate. By the way, I want to ask a favour of you on her ladyship's account. We are going to bury that poor beggar Ebbington in half an hour. Will you conduct the service?"

"Did her ladyship tell you to ask me?"

He answered in the affirmative.

"Then if it is her desire of course I will do so," I replied, "though I must own I do not very much look forward to the task."

He thanked me and went below to give the necessary instructions. I waited about, and in half an hour the body was brought on deck, neatly sewn up in a hammock, and covered with a plain white ensign by way of a pall. Though we could hardly see each other, or the bier, we took our place at the gangway, and I at once began to read the beautiful service for the burial of the dead at sea. When I arrived at the place where it is instructed that the body shall be cast into the deep, I gave a signal, and the stretcher was tilted, so that the hammock and its grim contents slid off it and fell with a sullen splash into the water alongside. Just as it disappeared a curious thing happened.

The body could hardly have touched the water before the fog was lifted, as though by some giant hand, and the sun shone brilliantly forth. The transition from the obscurity of semi-darkness to bright sunshine was quite dazzling, and set us all blinking like so many owls. Then I saw every face turn suddenly in one direction, and as they did so every mouth went down. Next moment the officer of the watch had bounded to the engine-room telegraph, there was a confused ringing of