the old
house on distant Sarah Island.

In the afternoon Frere went away to drag together some wood for the
fire, and when he returned he found the pilot near his end. Mrs. Vickers
said that for an hour he had lain without motion, and almost without
breath. The major's wife had seen more than one death-bed, and was calm
enough; but poor little Sylvia, sitting on a stone hard by, shook with
terror. She had a dim notion that death must be accompanied by violence.
As the sun sank, Bates rallied; but the two watchers knew that it was
but the final flicker of the expiring candle. "He's going!" said
Frere at length, under his breath, as though fearful of awaking his
half-slumbering soul. Mrs. Vickers, her eyes streaming with silent
tears, lifted the honest head, and moistened the parched lips with her
soaked handkerchief. A tremor shook the once stalwart limbs, and the
dying man opened his eyes. For an instant he seemed bewildered, and
then, looking from one to the other, intelligence returned to his
glance, and it was evident that he remembered all. His gaze rested upon
the pale face of the affrighted Sylvia, and then turned to Frere. There
could be no mistaking the mute appeal of those eloquent eyes.

"Yes, I'll take care of her," said Frere.

Bates smiled, and then, observing that the blood from his wound had
stained the white shawl of Mrs. Vickers, he made an effort to move his
head. It was not fitting that a lady's shawl should be stained with the
blood of a poor fellow like himself. The fashionable fribble, with quick
instinct, understood the gesture, and gently drew the head back upon her
bosom. In the presence of death the woman was womanly. For a moment all
was silent, and they thought he had gone; but all at once he opened his
eyes and looked round for the sea.

"Turn my face to it once more," he whispered; and as they raised him,
he inclined his ear to listen. "It's calm enough here, God bless it," he
said; "but I can hear the waves a-breaking hard upon the Bar!"

And so his head dropped, and he died.

As Frere relieved Mrs. Vickers from the weight of the corpse, Sylvia ran
to her mother. "Oh, mamma, mamma," she cried, "why did God let him die
when we wanted him so much?"

Before it grew dark, Frere made shift to carry the body to the shelter
of some rocks at a little distance, and spreading the jacket over the
face, he piled stones upon it to keep it steady. The march of events had
been so rapid that he sc