you hear him?  Oh, Heavens!  He says that I am going to be an author, and he is going to publish for me for a thousand years—­going to publish on the quarter-profit system, with an annual account, the usual trade deductions, and no vouchers.  Oh! oh!  Look!—­they are all coming!—­they are pouring out of the Hutches! they are going to murder me!—­keep them off! keep them off!” and he howled and beat the air with his hands.

Augusta, utterly overcome by this awful sight, knelt down by his side and tried to quiet him, but in vain.  He continued beating his hands in the air, trying to keep off the ghostly train, till, at last, with one awful howl, he fell back dead.

And that was the end of Meeson.  And the works that he published, and the money that he made, and the house that he built, and the evil that he did—­are they not written in the Book of the Commercial Kings?

“Well,” said Augusta faintly to herself when she had got her breath back a little, “I am glad that it is over; anyway, I do hope that I may never be called on to nurse the head of another publishing company.”

“Auntie! auntie!” gasped Dick, “why do the gentleman shout so?”

Then, taking the frightened child by the hand, Augusta made her way through the rain to the other hut, in order to tell the two sailors what had come to pass.  It had no door, and she paused on the threshold to prospect.  The faint foggy light was so dim that at first she could see nothing.  Presently, however, her eyes got accustomed to it, and she made out Bill and Johnnie sitting opposite to each other on the ground.  Between them was the breaker of rum.  Bill had a large shell in his had, which he had just filled from the cask; for Augusta saw him in the act of replacing the spigot.

“My go!—­curse you, my go!” said Johnnie, as Bill lifted the shell of spirits to his lips.  “You’ve had seven goes and I’ve only had six!”

“You be blowed!” said Bill, swallowing the liquor in a couple of great gulps.  “Ah! that’s better!  Now I’ll fill for you, mate:  fair does, I says, fair does and no favour,” and he filled accordingly.

“Mr. Meeson is dead,” said Augusta, screwing up her courage to interrupt this orgie.

The two men stared at her in drunken surprise, which Johnnie broke.

“Now is he, Miss?” he said, with a hiccough:  “is he?  Well, a good job too, says I; a useless old landlubber he was.  I doubt he’s off to a warmer place than this ’ere Kerguelen Land, and I drinks his health, which, by-the-way, I never had the occasion to do before.  Here’s to the health of the departed,” and he swallowed the shellfull of rum at a draught.

“Your sentiment I echoes,” said Bill.  “Johnnie, the shell; give us the shell to drink the ’ealth of the dear departed.”

Then Augusta returned to her hut with a heavy heart.  She covered up the dead body as best she could, telling little Dick that Mr. Meeson was gone by-by, and then sat down in that chill and awful company.  It was very depressing; but she comforted herself somewhat with the reflection that, on the whole, Mr. Meeson dead was not so bad as Mr. Meeson in the animated flesh.