CHAPTER 12.
A FUNERAL How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can--_Browning_ We stood for a moment holding one another's hands; then Ratsey spoke.
'John, these two months have changed thee from boy to man.

Thou wast a child when I turned that morning as we went up Hoar Head with the pack-horses, and looked back on thee and Elzevir below, and Maskew lying on the ground.

'Twas a sorry business, and has broken up the finest gang that ever ran a cargo, besides driving thee and Elzevir to hide in caves and dens of the earth.

Thou shouldst have come with us that morn; not have stayed behind.

The work was too rough for boys: the skipper should have piped the reefing-hands.' It was true enough, or seemed to me true then, for I felt much cast down; but only said, 'Nay, Master Ratsey, where Master Block stays, there I must stay too, and where he goes I follow.' Then I sat down upon the bed in the corner, feeling my leg began to ache; and the storm, which had lulled for a few minutes, came up again all the fiercer with wilder gusts and showers of spray and rain driving into the cave from seaward.