for all around him, had
disappeared, and he seemed thoughtful, if not meek.

"This death, gentlemen," said he, when he had got sufficiently near,
"is a melancholy business, make the best of it. Now, here is Sergeant
Dunham, a very good soldier, I make no question, about to slip his
cable; and yet he holds on to the better end of it, as if he was
determined it should never run out of the hawse-hole; and all because he
loves his daughter, it seems to me. For my part, when a friend is really
under the necessity of making a long journey, I always wish him well and
happily off."

"You wouldn't kill the Sergeant before his time?" Pathfinder
reproachfully answered. "Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that
matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got
to be of the least value."

Nothing had been further from Cap's real thoughts than the wish to
hasten his brother-in-law's end. He had found himself embarrassed with
the duties of smoothing a deathbed, and all he had meant was to express
a sincere desire that the Sergeant were happily rid of doubt and
suffering. A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had
been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the
man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes
justice. "You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder," said
he, "to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying out his ideas in
distress, as it might be. Sergeant Dunham is both my brother-in-law and
my friend,--that is to say, as intimate a friend as a soldier well can
be with a seafaring man,--and I respect and honor him accordingly. I
make no doubt, moreover, that he has lived such a life as becomes a
man, and there can be no great harm, after all, in wishing any one well
berthed in heaven. Well! we are mortal, the best of us, that you'll not
deny; and it ought to be a lesson not to feel pride in our strength and
beauty. Where is the Quartermaster, Pathfinder? It is proper he should
come and have a parting word with the poor Sergeant, who is only going a
little before us."

"You have spoken more truth, Master Cap, than you've been knowing to,
all this time. You might have gone further, notwithstanding, and said
that we are mortal, the _worst_ of us; which is quite as true, and a
good deal more wholesome, than saying that we are mortal, the _best_
of us. As for the Quartermaster's coming to speak a parting word to
the Ser