After the captain had given his orders, and seen the men fairly at work,
he came down to the cabin, still ghastly and pale, but with none of that
ferocity stamped on his grim features, from the outpouring of which I
had suffered so severely. He never once looked my way, no more than if
I had been a bundle of old junk; but folding his hands on his knee, he
sat down on a small locker, against which the feet of the dead mate
rested, and gazed earnestly on his face, which was immediately under the
open skylight, through which, by this time, the clear cold rays of the
moon streamed full on it, the short twilight having already fled,
chained as it is in these climates to the chariot wheels of the burning
sun. My eye naturally followed his, but I speedily withdrew it. I had
often bent over comrades who had been killed by gunshot wounds, and
always remarked, what is wellknown, that the features wore a benign
expression, bland and gentle, and contented as the face of a sleeping
infant, while their limbs were composed decently, often gracefully, like
one resting after great fatigue, as if nature, like an affectionate
nurse, had arranged the deathbed of her departing child with more than
usual care, preparatory to his last long sleep; whereas those who had
died from the thrust of a pike, or the blow of a cutlass, however mild
the living expression of their countenance might have been, were always
fearfully contorted both in body and face.
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