Then, the exigencies of the occasion admitting of no further delay, the task was suspended; all hands knocked off work; and, the bodies having meanwhile been enclosed in rough coffins very hastily put together by the carpenter and his mate, we all fell in; the gig's crew shouldered the late captain's coffin, while six of his mates acted as bearers to the other dead man; and, with Mr Perry leading the way and reading the burial service from a prayer-book, which it appeared he always carried about with him, we marched, slowly, solemnly, and bare-headed, up the slope of the sand spit to the spot which had been selected for the last resting-place of the dead.
