Peter sprang into the man's place. "I will be very quick," he said, touching his cap; and without another word wrapped one of the bodies quickly in its coarse covering and took a few stitches with the needle his comrade held out. He was so deft, and the lightning was so vivid, that the warden grunted and let him go on. Under other circumstances he would have been put in irons for insubordination. The stitches in Richard's blanket were few and slight, just enough to hold it about the body. "What was the matter with that fellow? I never heard him say he was sick," said one of the sentinels, stopping to look on. Peter's pulse stood still. "He has complained for some time of a pain about the heart. All last night he tossed and rolled, and just before the hatches were opened, he said to me that his time had come. He's hardly cold yet," he added hastily, as the man bent as though to touch a hand left exposed by a rent in the blanket. "Well, he'll have time enough to get cold in the ground," the warden said, coming up behind, and mistaking Peter's words for a plea for more time before the burial. "He was a sullen chap to whom I've been looking for trouble. I'll warrant he gets not cold between this and the devil," the guard said, giving the stiff body a parting kick. The waves tossed furiously, but the long-boat was launched, and two of the guard took their places in it, while the man who was to assist Peter at the graves followed to receive the bodies; for the sentinels never touched them, partly through fear of contagion, and partly out of contempt. The first two were finally lowered, and then came the moment Peter had dreaded; those other two had been stiff and stark enough, but he wanted no prying eyes looking on when he lifted this one, and so before he bent over to Richard, he glanced down the deck and raised his hand, quite casually, it seemed, to his face. Instantly, as though he had been on the watch for a signal, Jack Bangs started a funeral hymn, loud and wailing. "Stop that devilish howling!" roared the warden, wheeling around. Quick as a flash Peter, signing to his assistant, lifted the prostrate figure at his feet and swung it over the side. The ropes grated on the rail, and when the warden looked again, it was all over. Peter slid instantly down one of the ropes, and he and his fellow grave-digger untied the cords from the body and rolled it over beside the other two in the bottom of the boat, the guards having their hands full to keep the little craft from swamping in the waves. Then they cast off and pulled for the shore. "What makes you look at that carrion so confoundedly straight and scared," one of the soldiers asked Peter, sharply, noticing how often his eyes went to the figure at his feet. Peter cursed himself inwardly, but he had been so afraid that the blanket would rise and fall with a strong man's involuntary breathing that he had watched it in a sort of fascination. Now he looked away, answering slowly:--