At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff
struck the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked
a wild song through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced
anxiously aloft. The lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried
in the sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted the water swept
across the deck wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain
drove down upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it
passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in
unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck.

"I only remember one part of the service," he said, "and that is,
'And the body shall be cast into the sea.' So cast it in."

He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed
perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He
burst upon them in a fury.

"Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell's the matter with
you?"

They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and,
like a dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the
sea. The coal at his feet dragged him down. He was gone.

"Johansen," Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, "keep all
hands on deck now they're here. Get in the topsails and jibs and
make a good job of it. We're in for a sou'-easter. Better reef
the jib and mainsail too, while you're about it."

In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders