“Is he conscious?” I asked, anxiously.  “When I last saw him, I thought his mind wandered a little.”

“Perhaps it did; but he is now more collected, if not entirely so.  There is reason to think he has at length felt some of the influence of the Redeemer’s sacrifice.  For the last week, the proofs of this have been increasing.”

No more passed between Lucy and me, on the subject, at that time; but I entered the cabin in which the cot of Marble had been slung.  It was a spacious, airy room, for a ship; one that had been expressly fitted by my orders, for the convenience of Lucy and her two daughters, but which those dear, self-denying creatures had early and cheerfully given up to the possession of their old friend.

As yet, I have not particularly spoken of these two girls, the eldest of whom was named Grace, and the youngest Lucy.  At that time, the first was just fifteen, while her sister was two years younger.  By a singular coincidence, Grace resembled the women of my family most; while the latter, the dear, ingenuous, frank, pretty little thing, had so much likeness to her mother, when at the same time of life, that I often caught her in my arms, and kissed her, as she uttered some honest sentiment, or laughed joyously and melodiously, as had been the practice of her who bore her, twenty years before.  On those occasions, Lucy would smile, and sometimes a slight blush would suffuse her face; for I could see she well understood the impulse which would so suddenly carry me off to the days of my boyhood and boyish affection.

On the present solemn occasion both the girls were in the cabin, struggling to be calm, and doing all that lay in their power to solace the dying man.  Grace, the oldest, was the most active and efficient, of course, her tender years inducing diffidence in her sister; still, that little image of her mother could not be kept entirely in the back-ground, when the heart and the desire to be useful were urging her to come out of herself, in order to share in her sister’s duties.

I found Marble quite sensible, and the anxious manner in which he slowly examined all the interested faces that were now gathered about his bed, proved how accurately he noted the present and the absent.  Twice did he go over us all, ere he spoke in the husky tones that usually precede death—­

“Call Neb,” he said—­“took leave of my mates, and of all the rest of the men, yesterday; but I consider Neb as one of the family, Miles, and left him for the last.”

This I knew to be true, though I purposely absented myself from a scene that I well understood would have to be repeated in my case.  Neb was summoned accordingly, not a syllable being uttered among us, until the black stood just without the circle of my own wife and children.  Moses watched the arrangement jealously, and it seems he was dissatisfied at seeing his old shipmate keeping so much aloof at that solemn and absorbing moment.