We continued on our solemn journey until we came to a point about twenty miles off Aden, near the lower end of the Red Sea, and there we proceeded to bury the “Leckwith” and her ghost, the smell of the slaves. The funeral was conducted, early in the morning, with becoming ceremony and with sincere sorrow on the part of all of us. It is a terrifying thing to have a ship go down under you, even in a smooth sea and with the shore in sight, but it is a human tragedy to deliberately sink your own ship, and a long and intimate association, filled with dangers, such as mine had been with the “Leckwith,” manifolds the melancholy of it. I had thought I could send her down without great concern, inasmuch as it was necessary to protect her from capture and ourselves from arrest, but when the time came to do it I understood something of the feelings of the Western frontiersmen when they killed their wives to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Indians. In the nearly ten years that I had been with her she had carried me safely through more dangers than fall to the life of the ordinary man, even though he be as ardent a lover of the sea and of adventure as I myself. No storm that blew had ever driven her to shelter or made her question the security she felt in my hands. In all sorts of weather, under sail or steam, she had carried me clear of every pursuing ship that challenged her speed. However rough the usage she never rebelled or complained; wherever I directed her she went as true and straight as an arrow, with never a misstep or a falter. If she had been disgraced it was because I had elected to dishonor her; no part of the blame was hers. She was not an inanimate, unfeeling thing conceived by man out of iron and steel, but a living, breathing, human creation, with all the passion and sympathy and devotion of a woman, and, as is the way of most mortals, I did not know my own love for her until I was about to lose her. I am not much given to weeping, but there were tears in my eyes as I gave the signal that stilled forever the steady pulsations of her great, true heart, and I could feel the death tremor running through her as she came to a stop.