Not long after we had returned on board with our sad report, an auction was held of the poor man’s effects.  The captain had first, however, called all hands aft and asked them if they were satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought there was any use in remaining there longer.  The crew all said that it was in vain, for the man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily dressed.  So we then filled away and kept the brig off to her course.

The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law or a custom, established for convenience, that the captain should soon hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted from their wages at the end of the voyage.  In this way the trouble and risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and the clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on shore.  Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind, than his chest was brought up upon the forecastle, and the sale began.  The jackets and trousers in which we had seen him dressed so lately were exposed and bid off while the life was hardly out of his body, and his chest was taken aft and used as a store-chest, so that there was nothing left which could be called his.  Sailors have an unwillingness to wear a dead man’s clothes during the same voyage, and they seldom do so, unless they are in absolute want.

As is usual after a death, many stories were told about George.  Some had heard him say that he repented never having learned to swim, and that he knew that he should meet his death by drowning.  Another said that he never knew any good to come of a voyage made against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but, not being able to refund, was obliged to sail with us.  A boy, too, who had become quite attached to him, said that George talked to him, during most of the watch on the night before, about his mother and family at home, and this was the first time that he had mentioned the subject during the voyage.

The night after this event, when I went to the galley to get a light, I found the cook inclined to be talkative, so I sat down on the spars, and gave him an opportunity to hold a yarn.  I was the more inclined to do so, as I found that he was full of the superstitions once more common among seamen, and which the recent death had waked up in his mind.  He talked about George’s having spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams, and of unusual behavior of men before death.  From this he went on to other superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, &c., and talked rather mysteriously, having something evidently on his mind.  At length he put his head out of the galley and looked carefully about to see if any one was within hearing, and, being satisfied on that point, asked me in a low tone,—­