ry evening, he came up to me here as I
was standing by the binnacle to ask about some carpenter's stores that
were wanted in the engine-room. He and I then got talking, I recollect,
it being Sunday, I suppose, of religious matters. He imagined himself--
poor chap--a `materialist,' as they call themselves, but his arguments
on the point were very weak. He argued that there was no hereafter, no
future state; the heaven and hell spoken of in Scripture, he suggested,
being the happiness or punishment we meet with below here, while living,
in accordance with our own lives."

"Faith!" said Garry O'Neil, who was not a deep thinker, not troubling
himself much about anything beyond the present. "That's a puzzling
question; but I, for one, wouldn't care to be of that way of thinkin',
sure, sir."

"That question however, poor Jackson has solved, long ere this!"

As Captain Applegarth uttered these words, solemnly enough, the
fireman's ravings, when in the agonies of death, came back to me, and I
thought that, if confident in his materialism when in health and
strength, his creed had not altogether eased his mind at the last, when
I saw him raise his eyes, for a few minutes, to heaven in prayer.

That night the gale, which had moderated considerably during the
afternoon, assailed us again with renewed vigour, as if old Boreas had
put a fresh hand to the bellows, as sailor folk say.

It began in the middle watch, when the wind suddenly veered to the
southwards, and it came on to blow great guns, causing the skipper the
utmost uneasiness, as he feared we would break away from our spar
anchor, when, disabled as we were, a steamer in a storm without the use
of the engines being no better off than a baby in arms deprived of its
nurse, it seemed almost impossible to prevent the vessel from broaching-
to, in which case she would more than likely founder with all hands.

Consequently, not a soul turned in the livelong night, the port and
starboard watches both remaining on duty, with Captain Applegarth and
Mr Fosset on the bridge, while Garry O'Neil relieved the boatswain, who
now had eight men under him in charge of the wheel, where the utmost
caution and the greatest vigilance were necessary to keep the old
barquey's head to the sea. I had fearfully hard work, too, for the big
waves ever and anon leapt up over her bows, burying the fo'c's'le in
clouds of spray and spent water that came pouring down into the waist
and rushing a