A grim responsibility forced upon him.
Awful as the duty was, it had to be courageously faced, and performed as
tenderly as might be. Instead of the enjoyment of comfort and rest, and
days of busy companionship and revivifying hopes, there was the shock
that sudden death inflicts, dramatic loneliness, dry-eyed grief, forced
exertion, and the abandonment of brightening prospects.
With pain and infinite labour he succeeded in dragging and rolling the
corpse to the beach. Thence he pushed it up a plank on to the deck of
the cutter, and leaving his possessions to chance and fate, he, the
wearied and bereaved one-armed man, set sail in violent weather across
the open sea to the nearest port. At midnight the "great cry" of a
hurricane arose. Lightning flashed over the stricken yeasty sea. A
lonesome and grim quest this--full of peril. Did not Nature in the
trumpet tones of a furious and vengeful spirit decree the destruction of
the little boat as she bounced and floundered among the crests of those
awful waves? Here was booty belonging to the ocean--prey escaping from
the talons of the fiercest and most remorseless of harpies. So they
shrieked and swarmed about the boat, howling for what was theirs.
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