once
more, and to give him a farewell greeting for the lad's mother and
himself. A little bottle of medicated brandy had already been wrapped
up in a parcel, when the boys came in with a larger and stronger
bottle which they had found. This bottle would hold more than the
little one, and they pronounced that the brandy would be capital for
a bad digestion, inasmuch as it was mixed with medical herbs. The
draught that was now poured into the bottle was not so good as the red
wine with which it had once been filled; these were bitter drops, but
even these are sometimes good. The new big bottle was to go, and not
the little one; and so the bottle went travelling again. It was taken
on board for Peter Jensen, in the very same ship in which the young
mate sailed. But he did not see the bottle; and, indeed, he would not
have known it, or thought it was the same one out of which they had
drunk a health to the betrothed pair, and to his own happy return.

[Illustration: THE BOTTLE IS PRESENT ON A JOYOUS OCCASION.]

Certainly it had no longer wine to give, but still it contained
something that was just as good. Accordingly, whenever Peter Jensen
brought it out, it was dubbed by his messmates The Apothecary. It
contained the best medicine, medicine that strengthened the weak, and
it gave liberally so long as it had a drop left. That was a pleasant
time, and the bottle sang when it was rubbed with the cork; and it was
called the Great Lark, "Peter Jensen's Lark."

Long days and months rolled on, and the bottle already stood empty in
a corner, when it happened--whether on the passage out or home the
bottle could not tell, for it had never been ashore--that a storm
arose; great waves came careering along, darkly and heavily, and
lifted and tossed the ship to and fro. The mainmast was shivered, and
a wave started one of the planks, and the pumps became useless. It was
black night. The ship sank; but at the last moment the young mate
wrote on a leaf of paper, "God's will be done! We are sinking!" He
wrote the name of his betrothed, and his own name, and that of the
ship, and put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at hand:
he corked it firmly down, and threw it out into the foaming sea. He
knew not that it was the very bottle from which the goblet of joy and
hope had once been filled for him; and now it was tossing on the waves
with his last greeting and the message of death.

The ship sank, and the crew sank with her.