Nothing but darkness surrounded her on deck. She clung to a rope, appalled by the mournfulness of the scene. Not a star was to be seen in the heavens, and the sky and water were as black as the night. So solemn, so mournful was every thing around, that the ship seemed to be rushing into a pit of death, where no light was. She could not see her hand before her, but all at once her heart beat wildly at the sound of Joshua's voice. He was speaking to Rough-and-Ready, and they were quite near her, although she had not seen them. Even now she could but barely discern their forms in the gloom. Joshua had just made a remark that Rough-and-Ready must have been a great traveller. "Yes," answered Rough-and-Ready, "I've been about a pretty great deal. I've led a wild life; but then, you see, I never had any one to care for but myself." "Never?" questioned Joshua, in a tone that had a dash of pity in it. "Never but once, and that was only for a little while. But what matters? It will be all one by and by." "I should be sorry to think you meant that," continued Joshua; "it would be a sad belief that, at such a time as this." "You speak as if you didn't believe it, at all events," said Rough-and-Ready, in tones as soft as a girl's; "but then your circumstances are different to mine. You are young; I am"-- "Not old." "Old enough for twice your years. Then you have friends at home, mayhap?" "Ay, dear ones." "Mother and father?" "Ay; God bless them!" "Wife perhaps?" Joshua gave a gasp that sounded almost like a cry of pain. "Ah, well," continued Rough-and-Ready, "if we were to go down this minute, I don't know the man or woman who would say 'Poor fellow!' when my fate was known. I leave no one behind me, and my death would bring no grief to a single soul. Perhaps my condition is the happier of the two." "Not so," said Joshua sadly; "and I hope--indeed I believe--that you don't mean what you say. I have a friend at home--Dan, his name--to whom the news of my death would be the bitterest grief. I have dear ones at home, whose lives would be lives of mourning if I were not to return. I know this, and feel the pain that they would experience should it be God's will that we are not to escape this peril. But, strange as it may sound, I would not spare them the pain if it were in my power. Could I, by a wish, destroy the memories that make my life dear to me and them--dearer than you imagine--and so pluck from their hearts and minds the sting that my death would bring to them, I would not do so. For after death, there is life!" "You believe in the immortality of the soul, mate?" "Surely; and you?" Rough-and-Ready made no reply. "'Tis often difficult to believe in what we don't understand. On such a night as this--bleak, dreary, awfully solemn--with death waiting for us within a few yards perhaps--it is difficult to believe that there are spots on the earth where the sun is shining and where the flowers are blooming."