On the next day but one they all sat down to a last feast on that bleak
and lonely shore; the two comrades drank to each other for the last
time, shared the sacrament, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty
proved that if he could not live a true man he could die like a
gentleman; the headsman did his work, and Drake pronounced the solemn
sentence, "Lo! this is the death of traitors!"
In that black hour the boyish laughter went forever from the eyes of the
Admiral, and the careless mirth from his voice. When after a while young
Jack Drake, unable to bear the silence that fell between them, began
some phrase of blundering boyish affection, the sentence trailed off
into a stammer.
"He's dead and at peace, Jack," the master said, the words dropping
wearily, like spent bullets. "He couldn't help being as he was,--I
reckon. If I'd known he was like that I could ha' stopped him, but I
never knew--till too late."
Discord among the crews continued, until Drake, rousing from his fitful
melancholy, called them all together on a Sunday, and mounted to the
place of the chaplain.
"I am going to preach to-day," he said shortly. Then he unfolded a paper
and began to read it aloud.
"My masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been in
learning; but what I shall speak here let every man take good notice of
and let him write it down.
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