now resuming an uniform hue; the clouds had disappeared; and dark ether

clipt the broad ocean, in which the constellations vainly sought their

accustomed mirror. Our rate could not have been less than eight knots.

Suddenly I heard a splash in the sea. The sailors on watch rushed to the

side of the vessel, with the cry--some one gone overboard. "It is not

from deck," said the man at the helm, "something has been thrown from the

aft cabin." A call for the boat to be lowered was echoed from the deck. I

rushed into my sister's cabin; it was empty.

With sails abaft, the engine stopt, the vessel remained unwillingly

stationary, until, after an hour's search, my poor Perdita was brought on

board. But no care could re-animate her, no medicine cause her dear eyes to

open, and the blood to flow again from her pulseless heart. One clenched

hand contained a slip of paper, on which was written, "To Athens." To

ensure her removal thither, and prevent the irrecoverable loss of her body

in the wide sea, she had had the precaution to fasten a long shawl round

her waist, and again to the staunchions of the cabin window. She had

drifted somewhat under the keel of the vessel, and her being out of sight

occasioned the delay in finding her. And thus the ill-starred girl died a

victim to my senseless rashness. Thus, in early day, she left us for the

company of the dead, and preferred to share the rocky grave of Raymond,

before the animated scene this cheerful earth afforded, and the society of

loving friends. Thus in her twenty-ninth year she died; having enjoyed some

few years of the happiness of paradise, and sustaining a reverse to which

her impatient spirit and affectionate disposition were unable to submit. As

281

The Last Man