ain gave way to uncontrollable grief, while her husband, dazed and
motionless, sat gazing at the face of the dead.

The funeral and its surroundings was as sad as the death. Everything
was done to shroud the terrible reality. The poor remains were tenderly
laid in a black deal coffin and carried to the port side of the ship by
kind and loving hands. A young Wesleyan minister, who had been an
unfailing comforter and help to the family all through the boy's
illness, gave a brief but very impressive address to those who stood
around, and offered up an earnest prayer; but nothing could blind the
mourners, especially the parents, to the harsh fact that the remains
were about to be consigned to a never resting grave, and that they were
going through the form rather than the reality of burial, while, as if
to emphasise this fact, the back fin of a great shark was seen to cut
the calm water not far astern. It followed the ship until the hollow
plunge was heard, and the weighted coffin sank into the unknown depths
of the sea.

An impression that never faded quite away was made that day on some of
the more thoughtful and sensitive natures in the ship. And who can say
that even amongst the thoughtless and the depraved no effect was
produced! God's power is not usually exerted in visibly effective
processes. Seeds of life may have been sown by that death, which shall
grow and flourish in eternity. Certain it is that some of the reckless
were solemnised for a time, and that the young Wesleyan was held in
higher esteem throughout the ship from that day forward.

Some of the passengers, however, seemed very soon to forget all about
the death, and relapsed into their usual frames of mind. Among these
was Ned Jarring. For several days after the funeral he kept sober, and
it was observed that the Wesleyan minister tried to get into
conversation with him several times, but he resisted the good man's
efforts, and, when one of his chums laughingly remarked that he, "seemed
to be hand and glove wi' the parson now," Black Ned swung angrily round,
took to drinking again, and, as is usually the case in such
circumstances, became worse than before.

Thus the little world of ship-board went on from day to day, gradually
settling down into little coteries as like-minded men and women began to
find each other out. Gradually, also, the various qualities of the
people began to be recognised, and in a few weeks--as in the greater
world-