the hot cigar in his eye. He
sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. Ship in irons, tide
running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for
anchoring, bump!--there she was hard and fast. A stiff breeze got up at
sunrise, and she broke up. Next day I was sipping my grog and reading the
_Bengal Courier,_ and it told the disastrous wreck of the brig
_Antelope,_ wrecked in charge of a pilot; 'but no lives lost, and the
owners fully insured.' Then there was the bark _Sally._ Why, you saw her
yourself distressed on a lee shore."

"Yes," said Wylie. "I was in that tub, the _Grampus,_ and we contrived to
claw off the Scillies; yet you, in your smart _Sally,_ got ashore. What
luck!"

"Luck be blowed!" cried Hudson, angrily. "Somebody got into the chains to
sound, and cut the weather halyards. Next tack the masts went over the
side; and I had done my duty."

"Lives were lost that time, eh?" said Wylie, gravely.

"What is that to you?" replied Hudson, with the sudden ire of a drunken
man. "Mind your own business. Pass me the bottle."

"Yes, lives was lost; and always will be lost in sea-going ships, where
the skipper does his duty. There was a sight more lost at Trafalgar,
owing to every man doing his duty. Lives lost, ye lubber? And why not
mine? Because their time was come and mine wasn't. For I'll tell you one
thing, Joe Wylie--if she takes fire and runs before the wind till she is
as black as coal, and belching flame through all her port-holes, and then
explodes, and goes aloft in ten thousand pieces no bigger than my hat, or
your knowledge of navigation, Hudson is the last man to leave her. Duty!
If she goes on her beam-ends and founders, Hudson sees the last of her,
and reports it to his employers. Duty! If she goes grinding on Scilly,
Hudson is the last man to leave her bones. Duty! Some day perhaps I shall
be swamped myself along with the craft. I have escaped till now, owing to
not being insured; but if ever my time should come, and you should get
clear, promise me, Joe, to see the owners, and tell 'em Hudson did his
duty."

Here a few tears quenched his noble ardor for a moment. But he soon
recovered, and said, with some little heat, "You have got the bottle
again. I never saw such a fellow to get hold of the bottle. Come, here's
'Duty to our employers!' And now I'll tell you how we managed with the
_Carysbrook,_ and the _Amelia."_

This promise was followed by fresh narratives; in par