On the following evening at sunset, the deck of the steamer presented a most impressive appearance. All the officers and passengers of the ship were assembled around the corpse of poor Nina Van der Beck, over which the captain was reading the burial service. The evening was gloomy and threatening, and the dark-green waves were beginning to be capped with foam. Overhead there was a glaring red sky, of the fierce, angry color of blood which tinged the water around the ship a lurid crimson. Away in the west the sun, like a gigantic ball of fire, was sinking behind a bank of ominous-looking clouds, and from time to time a passing shadow shivered on the troubled waters like a streak of purple. Several huge albatross were unceasingly circling around the vessel with broad expanded wings, and their discordant cries added to the weird fantasy of the scene. The engines had been stopped, and the silence was only broken by the slashing of the waves against the ship's side and the melancholy moaning of the wind through the rigging, which was so strong as to sometimes almost drown the voice of the commander as he proceeded with the service.

On the deck at his feet lay a long, narrow object, sewed up in a canvas cover. An Austrian flag had been thrown partly over it, so as to conceal as much as possible the rigid outline of the corpse which produced so dismal an impression in its shroud of sail-cloth, to which two heavy cannonballs had been attached.

Frederick was leaning against the bulwark, close to the [Pg 146] place where an opening had been purposely prepared. His arms were folded on his breast, and his head was bent; but, although he was deadly pale, he showed no trace of emotion, and remained so perfectly still that he might have been carved in marble. Only once during the brief ceremony did his unnatural calm give way. The captain had arrived at those most solemn words of a burial service at sea:

“We therefore commit her body to the deep, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead.”
NINA BURIED AT SEA.

Four quartermasters, with bared heads, at that moment seized the corpse, and, placing it on an inclined plank, allowed it to gently glide downward into the dark waters. The waves opened for an instant, with a low, hissing sound, and then closed again over all that remained of the once beautiful and admired Nina. Frederick shuddered, as if overcome by a great terror, and an expression of horror swept over his livid features. Making his way through the group of mourners, he rapidly walked forward to the very bows of the vessel, and for three long hours he remained there motionless, leaning against the bulwark, peering into the gathering darkness, and apparently heedless of the terrible storm which was coming on.

The tempest, which had announced itself by an alarming fall of the barometer, burst forth shortly after ten o'clock that night in all its intensity. It seemed as if the very elements were raising their voices in protest against the great crime which had been committed. For a time the wind was so powerful that the ship could make no headway, and the very waves were beaten down by its terrific force. The air for a depth of about fifteen feet above the surface of the water was covered with a dense kind of mis............