having fallen suddenly into a pleasant sleep. I laid my
fingers quickly upon his wrist fearing I knew not what, and failed to
detect any movement of the pulse. Sir Edgar, meanwhile, had joined me,
and now thrust his hand inside the waistcoat, over the region of the
heart. He held it there a moment or two, and then started up,
horror-stricken. "Good God!" he ejaculated, "the man is _dead_!"

It was so. There could be no doubt about it. Roberts's presentiment
had actually been a true one; he had indeed been doomed to die that
night. But it was no mortal bullet that slew him; God Himself had
launched the bolt that had severed the thread of this staunch and
faithful sailor's broken life. It was that last terrible flash of
lightning that had killed him; and the poor fellow had died so
instantaneously that he could scarcely have been conscious of the
momentous change; certainly it must have been impossible that he could
have experienced the least sensation of pain.

I was inexpressibly shocked and grieved at this terribly sudden death of
my chief mate; not so much on account of the death itself--for, after
hearing the poor fellow's sad story in the earlier part of the night, I
could not for an instant doubt that death would be regarded by him as a
thrice welcome friend--but it was the awful suddenness and unexpected
character of it that appalled me. However, I had no time to dwell upon
the matter just then, for, though perfectly safe at the moment, every
fathom that the ship travelled carried her more nearly to a position of
awful jeopardy. I therefore gave orders that the body should be taken
below to Roberts's own state-room, and begged Sir Edgar to go below and
see whether he could by any means restore vitality to it; hurriedly
explaining the situation to him, and pointing out the impossibility of
my leaving the deck until the safety of the ship should be assured. The
kind-hearted fellow at once consented, and followed the men below,
leaving me alone in the darkness and the turmoil of the storm to reflect
on the words he had spoken on the night that witnessed the destruction
of the _Northern Queen_: "How completely are we in the hands of God, and
how absolutely dependent upon His Mercy!"

Our present situation was a further exemplification of this great truth,
if indeed such were needed; for there was no sign whatever of any
abatement of the strength of the gale; indeed, contrary to all my
previous experience