ought a fist-full.

"Now, Jack, some _slush_."

Jack dipped the oakum in the slush-bucket which hung against the
main-mast.

"Now, Jack, a little tar."

The mixture was immediately dropped into the tar-bucket.

"Now, Jack, stow it away in Pratt's mouth--don't wake him up--'tis a
delicate undertaking, but he sleeps soundly."

"Lord! a stroke of lightning wouldn't wake him--ha! ha! ha! he'll
dream he is eating his breakfast!"

With a broad grin upon his weather-beaten face, Marlinspike proceeded
to obey orders. He placed the execrable compound carefully in Pratt's
mouth, and plugged it down, as he called it, with the end of his
jack-knife, then surveying his work with a complacent laugh, he
touched his hat, and withdrew a few paces to bide the event.

Pratt breathed hard, but slept on, though the melody of his snoring
was sadly impaired in the clearness of its utterance.

Morris gazed at him quietly, and then sung out,

"Pratt--Pratt--what are you lying there wheezing like a porpoise for?
Get up, man, your watch is not out."

The sailor opened his eyes with a ludicrous expression of fright, as
he became immediately conscious of a peculiar feeling of difficulty in
breathing--thrusting his huge hand into his mouth, he hauled away upon
its contents, and at length found room for utterance.

"By heaven, just tell me who did that 'ar nasty trick--that's all."

At this moment he caught sight of Marlinspike, who was looking at him
with a grin extending from ear to ear. Without further remark, Pratt
let the substance which he had held in his hand fly at Marlinspike's
head; that individual, however, dodged very successfully, and it
disappeared to leeward.

Pratt was about to follow up his first discharge with an assault from
a pair of giant fists, but the voice of his commander restrained him.

"Ah, Pratt! somebody has been fooling you--you must look out for the
future."

Pratt immediately knew from the peculiar tone of the voice which
accompanied this remark who was the real author of the joke, and
turned to his duty with the usual philosophy of a sailor, at the same
time filling his mouth with nearly a whole hand of tobacco, to take
the taste out, as he said. He did not soon sleep upon his watch again.

As the reader will perceive, Lieut. Morris was decidedly fond of a
joke, as, indeed, is every sailor.

The storm still raged onward as day broke over the waters; the little
Raker was surrounded by immense wa