ere out at sea again began
to drop off. I never can forget an incident of that voyage, which, as
it could only have happened during blockade-running times, I will
mention, melancholy though it was. Two men died in the middle watch one
night, when we were in very dangerous waters. Their bodies were wrapped
in rough shrouds, ready to be committed to the deep when daylight broke,
as we dared not show a light whereby to read the Funeral Service. I
never waited so anxiously or thought the dawn so long in coming. I was
waiting with my Prayer-book in my hands straining my eyes to make out
the service; the men with their hats off, standing by the bodies, ready
to ease them down into the sea. Our minds I fear wandered towards the
danger that existed (almost to a certainty) of a cruiser making us out
by the same light that enabled us to perform our sad office. However, as
soon as there was light enough, the service was read without any
indecent hurry, and fortunately nothing was in sight to disturb us for
several hours afterwards.

It was miserable work. That morning about seven o'clock a man came up
from the engine-room, and while trying to say something to me fell down
in a fit, and was dead in half an hour. There was quite a panic among us
all, and as if to make things worse to the superstitious sailors,
whenever we stopped several horrid sharks immediately showed themselves
swimming round the vessel. The men lost all heart, and would I think
have been thankful to have been captured, as a means of escape from what
they believed to be a doomed vessel. Taking into consideration that if
we got into Wilmington we should, with this dreadful disease on board,
have been put into almost interminable quarantine (for the inhabitants
of Wilmington having been decimated before by yellow fever, which was
introduced by blockade-runners, had instituted the most severe sanitary
laws), I determined to go back to Halifax.

On arriving there I was taken very ill with yellow fever, and on my
recovery made up my mind to give up blockade-running for ever and all.
The game indeed was fast drawing to a close. Its decline was caused in
the first by the impolitic behaviour of the people at Wilmington, who,
professedly acting under orders from the Confederate Government at
Richmond, pressed the blockade-runners into their service to carry out
cotton on Government account, in such an arbitrary manner that the
profit to their owners, who had been put to