Had this funeral happened in daylight I should have ordered the topsail to be backed. I agree with those who hold that the ship’s way should be stopped when the body is launched. It would have been, however, but the idlest of ceremonies to back the topsail in this deep midnight hour. There was besides a large sea running, the fresh wind was off the quarter, and the brig would have needed a shift of the helm to have got an effectual stand out of her backed canvas. Cold, oh how bitterly cold did that night grow on a sudden with the presence of that body, pale on its plank in the lantern light! A wilder cry sounded in the wind, a deeper dye entered the darkness. I prayed aloud briefly, but not for the hearing of the men: the hiss of the sweeping water alongside drowned my voice. “Launch!” I cried. As the canvas figure fled like a wreath of white smoke from the rail a sunbright flash of fire threw out the whole brig: the roar of a gun followed. At that instant--at the instant of the explosion of the carronade--and while the two fellows who had tilted the body paused for a moment or two, grasping the end of the plank, a dark form seemed to spring from the deck at my feet; it gained the plank in a bound, and went overboard. “Der dok!” roared one of the Dutchmen. The second gun was exploded with a deafening roar. “Was that Galloon?” I shouted. “It was, sir,” answered two or three voices. “Hold your hand,” I bawled to the fellow at the third carronade. I sprang on to the rail to look over. No sanity in _that_, for what was there to see, what did I expect to see? We were going at nine knots an hour: the spread of yeast on either hand of us was a wild and roaring race that throbbed out of sight in the darkness abeam within a biscuit’s toss, and that fled and vanished into the darkness abaft, within the span of the brig’s main-deck. “Are you sure it was the dog?” I cried from the rail. “Yes, sir; yes, sir, it was the dog--it was Galloon,” was the answer. “It was the dog,” cried Miss Aurora, coming close to me. “Oh, poor Galloon!” I was struck to the heart. For some moments I stood motionless, staring into the blackness, while the brig stormed onward, rolling and foaming through the night. Was there nothing to be done? Nothing, I vow to God. Perilous it might have been to bring the brig to the wind in that hollow sea: but to save Galloon, who had saved my life, I would have risked the brig, the treasure in her, nay, the lives within her, so wild was I then. But the dog could not have been rescued without lowering a boat, and a boat stood to be swung and smashed into staves ere a soul entered her; and consider also the blackness of the Cape Horn night that lay upon the ocean! “Are these guns to be fired, sir?” “No. Oh, lads, I would not have lost that dog for twenty-fold my share of the money below. He saved my life--he’s still swimming out there--he’s alive out there and may live. Where’s Jimmy?” “Blubbering here, sir,” said a voice.