“You wouldn’t kill the Sergeant before his time?” Pathfinder reproachfully answered.  “Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I’ve known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value.”

Nothing had been further from Cap’s real thoughts than the wish to hasten his brother-in-law’s end.  He had found himself embarrassed with the duties of smoothing a deathbed, and all he had meant was to express a sincere desire that the Sergeant were happily rid of doubt and suffering.  A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes justice.  “You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder,” said he, “to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying out his ideas in distress, as it might be.  Sergeant Dunham is both my brother-in-law and my friend, —­ that is to say, as intimate a friend as a soldier well can be with a seafaring man, —­ and I respect and honor him accordingly.  I make no doubt, moreover, that he has lived such a life as becomes a man, and there can be no great harm, after all, in wishing any one well berthed in heaven.  Well! we are mortal, the best of us, that you’ll not deny; and it ought to be a lesson not to feel pride in our strength and beauty.  Where is the Quartermaster, Pathfinder?  It is proper he should come and have a parting word with the poor Sergeant, who is only going a little before us.”

“You have spoken more truth, Master Cap, than you’ve been knowing to, all this time.  You might have gone further, notwithstanding, and said that we are mortal, the worst of us; which is quite as true, and a good deal more wholesome, than saying that we are mortal, the best of us.  As for the Quartermaster’s coming to speak a parting word to the Sergeant, it is quite out of the question, seeing that he has gone ahead, and that too with little parting notice to himself, or to any one else.”

“You are not quite so clear as common in your language, Pathfinder.  I know that we ought all to have solemn thoughts on these occasions, but I see no use in speaking in parables.”

“If my words are not plain, the idee is.  In short, Master Cap, while Sergeant Dunham has been preparing himself for a long journey, like a conscientious and honest man as he is, deliberately, the Quartermaster has started, in a hurry, before him; and, although it is a matter on which it does not become me to be very positive, I give it as my opinion that they travel such different roads that they will never meet.”

“Explain yourself, my friend,” said the bewildered seaman, looking around him in search of Muir, whose absence began to excite his distrust.  “I see nothing of the Quartermaster; but I think him too much of a man to run away, now that the victory is gained.  If the fight were ahead instead of in our wake, the case would be altered.”