allow it. My duty is to keep body and soul together as long at I can."

I thought even at the time that something more was to be done. It was
not, however, till many years afterwards that I discovered it was far
more important to prepare the soul for quitting the body, than to detain
it a few hours or days longer in its mortal frame, with the risk of its
losing all the future happiness it is so capable of enjoying. When I
went back to the old mate I told him that the doctor thought he was in a
very bad way, and that he would never be on his feet again.

"Well, Will," said he, "it's a hard case; but I've known men as ill as I
am get well again, and I don't know why I shouldn't recover."

"But if you don't recover,--and the doctor, who ought to know, thinks
you won't,--wouldn't it be well to prepare for death, sir?" said I
boldly; for, having made up my mind to speak, I was not going to be put
off it by any fear of consequences. He was silent for a long time.

"I'll think about it," he said at last.

He little thought how short a time he had to think about it. So it is
with a great number of people. They'll tell you that they will not
think about dying, but think whether they will make preparation for
death; and they go on thinking, till death itself cuts the matter short,
and the right preparations are never made. So it was with the poor old
mate. He said that he had no friends,--no relations who would care to
hear of him,--and that he had no message to send to any one. He
intended, however, to get well and to look after his own affairs. In
the evening he got worse. I suspected that he thought he was dying,
because he gave his watch to Mr Adams, who had been so kind to us, and
divided a few shillings he had in his pockets between Charley and me.
The next day he died. Though I had no respect for him, I felt a blank
as if I had lost an old friend. Charley and I saw the poor old man
buried, and then we agreed that it was time for us to be looking out for
a vessel to get back to our masters.

The next day a brig called the _Mary Jane_ put into the harbour, bound
round from Bridgewater to London. Though I wanted to get to Plymouth to
see my grandmother and aunt, and Charley wished to go to Hull, to stay
with his widowed mother, as another chance might not occur for some
time, we shipped aboard her. Before going we told Mr Adams the name of
the firm to which we were apprenticed, that he might recover from t