Chapter 25

"Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep,
By the wild and stormy steep,
Elsinore!"
_Campbell_.

Long and dreary did the hours appear to Barnstable, before the falling
tide had so far receded as to leave the sands entirely exposed to his
search for the bodies of his lost shipmates. Several had been rescued
from the wild fury of the waves themselves; and one by one, as the
melancholy conviction that life had ceased was forced on the survivors,
they had been decently interred in graves dug on the very margin of that
element on which they had passed their lives. But still the form longest
known and most beloved was missing, and the lieutenant paced the broad
space that was now left between the foot of the cliffs and the raging
ocean, with hurried strides and a feverish eye, watching and following
those fragments of the wreck that the sea still continued to cast on the
beach. Living and dead, he now found that of those who had lately been
in the Ariel, only two were missing. Of the former he could muster but
twelve, besides Merry and himself, and his men had already interred more
than half that number of the latter, which, together, embraced all who
had trusted their lives to the frail keeping of the whale-boat.

"Tell me not, boy, of the impossibility of his being safe," said
Barnstable, in deep agitation, which he in vain struggled to conceal
from the anxious youth, who thought it unnecessary to follow the uneasy
motions of his commander, as he strode along the sands. "How often have
men been found floating on pieces of wreck, days after the loss of their
vessel? and you can see, with your own eyes, that the falling water has
swept the planks this distance; ay, a good half-league from where she
struck. Does the lookout from the top of the cliffs make no signal of
seeing him yet?"

"None, sir, none; we shall never see him again. The men say that he
always thought it sinful to desert a wreck, and that he did not even
strike out once for his life, though he has been known to swim an hour,
when a whale has stove his boat. God knows, sir," added the boy, hastily
dashing a tear from his eye, by a stolen movement of his hand, "I loved
Tom Coffin better than any foremast man in either vessel. You seldom
came aboard the frigate but we had him in the steerage among us reefers,
to hear his long yarns, and share our cheer. We all loved him, Mr.
Barnstable; but love cannot bring the dead to life again."

"I know it, I know it," said Barnstable, with a huskiness in his voice
that betrayed the depth of his emotion. "I am not so foolish as to
believe in impossibilities; but while there is a hope of his living, I
will