His brother was dead. He was certain of this now. He had known for some time, really, but had thus far refused to to accept it.

It was the cold that killed him.

The cold was total. Numbing. Destructive in its persistence. He had a good thirty pounds on Robert. It had been the subject of jokes on land, but now seemed to be the difference between life and death.

The sea had calmed after days and days; the clouds were just starting to give way. He could tell by the stars he hadn't seen for nearly a week, their ancient light just enough to allow a difference between ocean and sky, between water and wood.

His brothers pale blue eyes matched now by the pallor of his skin, the moon, too, valiantly fought against the days-old cloud cover to once again share its borrowed light.

—Lending a charm to every ray/that falls on her cheeks of light—

He hoped the sun would show himself again soon.

A wave, stronger than those that had lapped for hours against table-turned-raft, pushed the side not weighed down with half-submerged men, threatening to topple them. He grabbed his brother's arm and pulled, lifting him, just enough to get his waist above the water line.

He no longer hoped for rescue, only that If they were both to die, here in the forgotten middle of the Mighty Atlantic, that they die together.

—Giving the zephyr kiss for kiss/and nursing the dewdrop bright—

There they sat for minutes or hours or days or eons--time had lost all relevance. He and his brother--alone together in death as they had been in life--the only two left of the seven that had come to America two decades earlier when he was but five, his brother not yet three.

He wondered now if they were closer to American soil or British.

—Ah! May the red rose live alway/To smile upon the earth and sky—

They lost mother and father in the span of only a year and ten months. Mother was first: Struck dead by horse and carriage as she tried to cross the street in downtown San Fransisco. She'd been so excited to go, to again see the magic that is a Large City. Father was rumored to have died of a broken heart. The boys knew it was a destroyed liver; He had hid his drink better than his grief.

His sisters, older, had all married and returned to England. Two were still there; One had followed her husband to India. It was to visit the two, to see his young nephews and niece, that they had booked passage on the SS Central America. They were on the leg from Aspinwall, Panama, to New York City.

Just off the coast of the Carolinas was when the winds started. The air moved about with such velocity as they had never experienced, tearing violently at the ship, sending building-sized waves into the hull of the sidewheel steamer with relentless consistency.

Women and children had been sent by way of life boat to other vessels, but men willing to make the return trip were few. Men strong enough to row in such conditions whittled that list down to even fewer.

The men left aboard, under orders from Captain Herndon, did what they could. Including he and Robert. But, alas, what can a poorly-manned bucket brigade hope to do against such forces as arise in a sea under assault from a hurricane?

Robert had been the one with the foresight to secure a table for use as a raft, should it come to that.

It did, and sooner than anyone had anticipated.

He knew not of the fate of the crew or the other men left aboard, save for the few he and Robert had seen pulled under by the sinking ship. Or the others, who had stopped making noise--stopped calling out--some time in during the night.

—Why should the beautiful ever weep?/Why should the beautiful die?—

Robert had been certain the table would be sufficient to keep them buoyant and above water. He had been proved only half-correct. They stayed afloat, but barely. The water had been at first shocking, then cold, then, to Robert's surprise, comforting, warm. He knew Robert was dead when he said it. That the water was getting warm. He'd heard stories from men that had come west as part of a wagon train, about how they'd lost some of their party to frostbite. Of how, toward the end, some of them would take off pieces of clothing, certain that warmth was returning, feeling that they were overheating.

They were not. They were dying.

As did Robert.

He kept one hand on his brother's corpse for fear that a rogue wave might push Robert off the raft. The other he kept tightly gripping a table leg for fear that same wave might push him off, as well. He wondered if he would have the energy to get himself back on the raft, much less drag his brother back.

—Long may the daisies dance the field/Frolicking far and near—

The sun was coming up. He had not noticed it at first, the change so subtle. But now he could see it on the horizon, like his father's bald head emerging from the pond where he had taught his boys to swim.

While the increase in light was immediate, the warmth was not. The sun had to rise nearly two hands above the horizon before he began to feel the rays touch his skin.

He hoped the hope of the young, the naive, that his brother, now warmed by the sun, might awaken, might say that he'd been but asleep that whole time, conserving his energy as though a hibernating bear.

He did not.

—Why should the innocent hide their heads?/Why should the innocent fear?—

At what he could only approximate to be around eleven o'clock he heard it. Not words, not really. A groan. He turned to see something contrasting against the monotone ocean blue, just briefly out of his peripheral vision, before it was gone again. Was he imagining it? Was this a sign that his mind was about to go? That he was also about to perish?

No!

It was a man!

The two strangers worked to close the distance: The man floating upon empty barrel, kicking with the last of his energy; The other atop a submerged dining table, slapping at the sea nearly in vain. But it worked, they came together at last. Exhausted.

The man groped at the table and tried to pull himself aboard, but the weight of three was too much and he was forced back to his barrel.

—Spreading their petals in mute delight/When morn in its radiance breaks—

He could not, could he? Was it not his responsibility to bring his brother home? To give him proper burial? Or, if they were to die asea, were they not to die together?

The man kicked, moving the awkwardly shaped floatation device close enough to grab hold of the table once again. The same result.

—Keeping a floral festival/Till the night-loving primrose wakes—

He wanted ceremony. He wanted a reading from the Gospel. He wanted... something. Something to signify that his brother had lived, that his life had value, that this loss mattered.

He wanted dignity for his brother that he could not provide.

Instead, he put his foot on his Robert's shoulder and pushed. Without instruction, the stranger understood and grabbed at the dead man's pants, pulling him off the raft, letting him sink into the sea.

The stranger climbed aboard the table, happy to have only his buttocks, feet, and part of his thighs submerged instead of everything below his shoulders.

The two men, now and forever connected through tragedy, sat in silence as the warmth of the sun tried to do what it could to stave off hyperthermia.

—Lulled be the dirge in the cypress bough/That tells of departed flowers/Ah! that the buterfly's gilded wing/Fluttered in evergreen bowers!—

They floated together listening to the infinite lapping of wave on wood, too broken to open the breach thus protected by their silence; Too tired for the physical requirements of even a proper introduction. If they were to die that day, they chose to die within their own minds: alone together.

—Sad is my heart for the blighted plants/Its pleasures are aye as brief/They bloom at the young year's joyful call/And fade away with the autumn leaf.—

At some time, maybe an hour after high noon, he saw it just to the southwest.

As with everything at sea level, he saw it then he didn't... then he did, then he didn't...

Then he did!

It was real!

It was real and it was getting larger.

Closer.

He lifted an arm that felt as though it weighed a thousand tons.

With great effort he pointed a finger.

His voice cracked from dehydration and disuse.

"Ship."

[Lyrics from ‘Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway’ by Stephen Foster, 1850.]