100 NI

were already dry, with a salt sparkle as of

bright whitc sand on the face of the planks, S0 1045L111(T was 1t. I went mto the head to gt a bath under the pump there, 1 feelin memory, as I write, the cexquisite sensation of that luxury of brilliant brine, cold as snow, melting through mec from head to foot to the nimble plying of the pump- brake by a scaman whom I regularly engaged for this job.

Tt was a truc tropic morning. The sca, of a pale lilac, flowed 1n a cgentle heave of swell into the south- west the glarc of the carly morning irooded 1 a sort of stecaumy whiteness in the at mosphere ; the sca went working to its distant reaches, and floated into a dim blending of liquid air and water, so that you couldn't tell where the sky ended; a weak, hot wind blew over the taflrail, but 1t was without weight. The courses swung to the swell without response to the blCZlL]HH(H of the air ; and on high the light cotton-whitce royals were suucdy curved by the dclicate passage of the draught.

Yect the barque had steerage way. When I looked through the grating at her metalled forcfoot I saw the 11})plw plcntl[ul as harp- strings threading aft, and whilst T dried mysclf [ watched the slow approach of a picce of timber hoary with barnacles, and venerable with long hairs of scaweed, amid and around which a thousand little fish were sporting, many-coloured as though a rainbow had been shivered.

[ returned to my cabin, dressed, and stepped on to the quarter- dul where 1 found some men spreading the d\\’lllllQ, and the captain in a white straw hat viewing an object out upon the water through a (Cle- scope, and talking to the boatsw ain, who stood alongside,

“What do you sce ?

“ Something that answered the captain.

The thing he looked at was about a milc distant, some three points on the starboard bow, On pointing the telescope, I dis- tinctly made out the fabric of a raft, hitted with a short mast, to which midw: ay a bundle—itresemble da parcel—was attachced. A portion of the ralt was covered by a white sheet or cloth, whence dangled a short length of s()mcthmd chocolate- colourced, m- hsundmsh ble even with the glass, lifting and \ml\mfi as the raft rose and fell upon the flomng heave of the sca.

“This ocean,” said the captain, the glass from me, ‘‘1s a big

YT asked. resembles a ralt,)”

taking

LS‘ T/()Aj

volume of

AAGAZLTNTY

tragic stories, and the artist who illustrates the book docs it 1 that fashion,” and he nodded 1 the direction of the raft.

“What do you make of 1it, boatswain ? I asked.

It looks to me,”" he answered in his strong, harsh, deep voice, “ like a religious

job—one of tham rafts the Burmah covies

float away their dead on. alore, s, but I've things."”

We sneaked stealthily towards the raft. It was scven bells—half-past seven—and the satlors ate thenr breakfast on the fore- castle, that they might view the strange LU]IUI rance. The mate, Mr. Perking, came on deck to relieve the boatswain, and, after mspecting the raft through the telescope, gave it as his opinion that it was a Malay floating bicr—**a Mussulman trick of occan burial, anyhow,” said he. *There should be a jar of water aboard the raft, and cakes and fruit for the corpse to regale on, if he ha'n't been dead long.”

The steward announced breakfast ; captain told him to hold 1t back awhile. He was as curious as T to gct a close view of the queer object with its white cloth and mast and parcel and chocolate- coluur('d fragment half in and half out Like a barge’s ]u:budld, and he bade the man at Llu, helm put the whecel over by a spoke or two ; but the wind was ncarly gone, the barque scarcely responded to the motion of her rudder, the thread-like lines at the cutwater had Lulul and a roasting, oppressive calm was upon the water, whitening it out into a tinghing sheen of quicksilver with a fiery shalt of blinding dazzle, solitary and splen- did, working with the swell like some monstrous scrpent of light right under the SUT.

The raft was about six cables' lengths off us when the barque came to a dead stand, with a soft, universal hollowing in ot ]ul canvas from royal to course, as 1}1()11011, lke somcething sentient, she (IL,]I\ cred one final sieh before the swoon of the calm scized her. But now we were near cnough to

I never see one heard tell of such

the

resolve the floating thing with the naked Cyce mmto detarls. Tt was a ratt formed of

bamboo cances. A\ mast about six fect tall was crected upon it ; the dark thing over the cdge proved a human leg, and, when the ldbll(, lfted with the swell aml ralsed the leg clear, we saw that the foot had been

caten away by fish, a numbcr of which Were swimiming abuut the raft, sending

little flashes ui foam over the palc suriace