After a little while of silence he said he thought somebody might read a prayer. “It’s the custom, sir,” he added, apologetically. And not long after, without another word, he passed away.

In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed to be wonderfully swollen about the chest and pockets, had turned out a great many various stores⁠—the British colors, a Bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink, the logbook, and pounds of tobacco. He had found a longish fir tree lying felled and cleared in the enclosure, and, with the help of Hunter, he had set it up at the corner of the log-house, where the trunks crossed and made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colors.

This seemed mightily to relieve him. He reentered the log-house and set about counting up the stores, as if nothing else existed. But he had an eye on Tom’s passage for all that, and as soon as all was over came forward with another flag and reverently spread it on the body.