thstanding the
pressure of the last-mentioned sail, surged violently, for there was a
heavy though a short sea. The farmer's son seemed to be gradually
petrifying with fear: he held on upon a fold of the sail instinctively,
without at all assisting to bundle it up. He had rallied all his
energies into his cramped and clutching fingers. As I looked down upon
him, I saw that he was doomed. I would have cried out for assistance,
but I knew that my cry would have been useless, even if I had been able,
through the roar of the winds and the waters, to have made it heard.

But this trying situation could not last long. The part of the sail on
which Reuben had hung, with what might be truly termed his death-clutch,
was wanted to be rolled in with the furl, and, by the tenacity of his
grasp, he impeded the operation.

"Rouse up, my lads, bodily, to windward," roared the master's mate,
stationed at the bunt of the sail.

"Let go, you lubber," said the sailor next to windward of Reuben, on the
yard.

Reuben was now so lost, that he did not reply to the man even by a look.
"Now, my lads, now: one, two, three, and a ---." Obedient to the call
of the officer, with a simultaneous jerk at the sail, the holdfast of
the stupid peasant was plucked from his cracking fingers; he fell back
with a loud shriek from the yard, struck midway on the main rigging, and
thence bounding far to leeward in the sea, disappeared, and for ever,
amid the white froth of the curling wave, that lapped him up greedily.
He never rose again. Perhaps, in her leeway, the frigate drifted over
him--and thus the violated laws of his country were avenged. I must
confess, that I felt a good deal shocked at the little sensation this
(to me) tragical event occasioned. But we get used to these things, in
this best of all possible worlds; and if the poacher died unwept,
unknelled, unprayed for, all that can be said of the matter is--that
many a better man has met with a worse fate.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

SYMPTOMS OF SICKNESS, NOT OF THE SEA, BUT OF THE LAND BEYOND IT--OUR
M.D. WISHES TO WRITE DIO, AND PREPARES ACCORDINGLY--RALPH IS ABOUT TO
REAP HIS FIRST MARINE LAURELS ON THE ROCKS OF COVE.

I do not get on with this life at all. I have not yet reached the Cove
of Cork. Clap on more sail. It is bitterly cold, however, and here we
are now safely moored in one of the petals of the "first flower of the
sea."

In making this short passage, Captain Re