spirit desired it, and why should the flame of him not go utterly out?

But his mind that could will life or death, still pulsed on. He saw the
two whale-boats land on the beach, and the sick, on stretchers or pick-a-
back, groaning and wailing, go by in lugubrious procession. He saw the
wind making on the clouded horizon, and thought of the sick in the
hospital. Here was something waiting his hand to be done, and it was not
in his nature to lie down and sleep, or die, when any task remained
undone.

The boss-boys were called and given their orders to rope down the
hospital with its two additions. He remembered the spare anchor-chain,
new and black-painted, that hung under the house suspended from the floor-
beams, and ordered it to be used on the hospital as well. Other boys
brought the coffin, a grotesque patchwork of packing-cases, and under his
directions they laid Hughie Drummond in it. Half a dozen boys carried it
down the beach, while he rode on the back of another, his arms around the
black's neck, one hand clutching a prayer-book.

While he read the service, the blacks gazed apprehensively at the dark
line on the water, above which rolled and tumbled the racing clouds. The
first breath of the wind, faint and silken, tonic with life, fanned
through his dry-baked body as he finished reading. Then came the second
breath of the wind, an angry gust, as the shovels worked rapidly, filling
in the sand. So heavy was the gust that Sheldon, still on his feet,
seized hold of his man-horse to escape being blown away. The _Jessie_
was blotted out, and a strange ominous sound arose as multitudinous
wavelets struck foaming on the beach. It was like the bubbling of some
colossal cauldron. From all about could be heard the dull thudding of
falling cocoanuts. The tall, delicate-trunked trees twisted and snapped