DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW THE mirthfulness which at times reigned among us was in strange and shocking contrast with the situation of some of the invalids.

Thus at least did it seem to me, though not to others.
But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing by far the most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less grating to my feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.
We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the sick who had rapidly grown worse, died one night within an hour of each other.
One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several days had not risen from it.

During this period he was often delirious, starting up and glaring around him, and sometimes wildly tossing his arms.
On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle watch began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt something clammy resting on me.

It was the sick man's hand.

Two or three times during the evening previous, he had thrust it into my bunk, and I had quietly removed it; but now I started and flung it from me.