They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I
did not catch, but which raised a general laugh.

Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and
Prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered
to pursue the quest amongst the watch below, returning in a minute
with the information that there was none.

The captain shrugged his shoulders. "Then we'll drop him over
without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has
the burial service at sea by heart."

By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me. "You're
a preacher, aren't you?" he asked.

The hunters,--there were six of them,--to a man, turned and
regarded me. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow.
A laugh went up at my appearance,--a laugh that was not lessened or
softened by the dead man stretched and grinning on the deck before
us; a laugh that was as rough and harsh and frank as the sea
itself; that arose out of coarse feelings and blunted
sensibilities, from natures that knew neither courtesy nor
gentleness.

Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a
slight glint of amusement; and in that moment, having stepped
forward quite close to him, I received my first impression of the
man himself, of the man as apart from his body, and from the
torrent of blasphemy I had heard him spew forth. The face, with