Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1882-12-16

some hours DelOfc. lHe llIlDS were
rigid and the flesh quite cold. The
skin, naturally, and even during i'll
ness. forid, was faded to the dry
texture of parchment; and the eyes
existed merely as yellow balls. the
pupils having been rolled up under
the eyelids until quite hidden. The
most terrible feature of the entire
figure, however, was the face. on
which the hand of death had fast
ened an awful exaggeration of the
remarkable sardonic expression pecu
liar to it in life, and which in every
distorted line seemed to grin into
space. with a frightful, sightless leer.
At four bells 1.-TWO o'clock) in the
afternoon the Caribbean was laid 70,
and the body of Abraham Sherrie,
attired in the scanty suit it had worn
in life, and with fifty pounds of coral
rock from the schooner's ballast at
tached to each ankle, was launched
overheard from the lee gangway. The
body had been laid ont on a common
light pine plank, and, through the
clumsiness of the seamen intrusted
with the duty of committing it to the
deep, this plank was sent over the
side along with its ghastly burden,
and they sank together.
As the schooner gathered head
way and resumed her course. one of
the seamen, who had been watching
the descent of the corpse through the
clear water. declared that it had
slipped it's ballast and was rising
again Before this assertion could
be verified, the Caribbean had gained
way before a ten-knot quarter breeze,
and left the scene of the burial a
mile behind. All that remained to
the San Bias trader of Abraham
Sherrie was an appropriate entry of
his death and burial in the log book,
and the recollection of it i'll the
minds of his late messmates.
The matter had quite faded from
Captain Wroughtons memory, when,
in September last, business called
him to the British Consulate at st.
Thomas. The consul was moment
arily absent, and the captain sat
down to await his appearance. On
the table at his elbow was heap of
documents. One of the former he
picked up. when the current of air
created by the movement fiuttered n
couple of the lighter memoranda to
the floor As he stoor ed to pick them
up, his eye caught the signature of
one, and some suggestion of familiar
ity in the calligraphy caused him to
examine it more closely. 1t was af
fixed to the printed form of con
sular instrument noting the commit
tai to TIE public hospital of pas
senger by the bark Soldene, from
Belize, and was signed by the subject
of it himself. Abraham Sherrie. The
signature was written firmly and in
very curious angular characters, with
the inclination backward in the let
ters common to the writing of left
handed people. The initial letters of
given and surname were iii printed
capitals.
Again and again the captain
studied the document. There. be
yond possibility of doubt, affixed
to an instrument bearing date July
18th, 1876, was the signature of the
man whom he had buried, within
sight of the white water of the Baxo
Nuevo. at two O'Clock on the after
noon of April 1st, and after he had
been dead at least ten hours.
There was something so unaccount-
able about the thing that the captain
felt a chill creeping through his
veins, and the characters on the pa
per in his hand faded into picture
of the funeral and its attendant cir
stances. The man had certainly
been dead. The burial was no hasty
affair, undertaken without proper ex
animation. He had inspected every
circumstance attendant on Sherrie's
demise himself. and could have sworn
to the fact of his death at the Judg
ment seat itself Besides, il his own
powers of discernment needed con-
firmation, it existed in the fact that
decomposition, always rapid in the
tropics, had certainly set in before
the final ceremony at the gangway.
And yet. here was the name. He
might perhaps be mistaken in the
minor details; but the substitution Of
printed capitals for the ordinary
written characters was peculiarly
scarcely likely to be repeated by two
distinct men.
As he turned this over in his mind,
he recollected suddenly the remark
made by the sailor after the burial
that the corpse had slipped its ballast
and was coming to the surface again;
and the blood rushed to his head in
a fierce food that set it whirling at
an idea -an idea that the entrance OF
the consul, in company with another
gentleman. for moment put to
flight.
After the first greetings, the re-
preventative of Her Britannia Males
ty presented his companion.
Colonel Abraham Sherrie!'
"You will excuse my left hand,
captain" said the colonel, extending
that member: and, with a stare OF
stupid amazement, the worthy skip
per saw that the right sleeve was
empty. "An overdose of your Van.
kee lead at fredericksburg ended
the usefulness of the other. Why
what's the matter are you ill.,
When the captain had regaineG
sufficient of his normal composure tC
speak, he extended the mysterious