d to set up his tabernacle for the
night upon the boom. Long before midnight he perceived the symptoms of
the cruel disorder that had so fearfully thinned the ----'s complement.
His distress increased every moment--he earnestly begged for a draught
of water, but in vain, and before daylight he became insensible. In due
time all hands were called; the resurrection-men commenced their
examination, and receiving no intelligible reply to a sound kick upon
our hero's ribs, the ship's corporal laid hold of him by the heels, and
dragged him into the gangway, where the two functionaries declared him
"dead enough to bury," and forthwith reported progress to that effect to
the lieutenant of the morning watch. "Very well," said the officer.
"Young gentlemen, have a couple of eighteen-pound shot got up; pass the
word, there, for the sail-maker's mate. Boatswain's mate, call all hands
to bury the dead. How many are there?" "Only one, sir." "Very well. Tell
Mr. Quill to bring his prayer-book on deck."

The corpse was soon inclosed in its canvass coffin, with the shot
attached to the feet. The captain's clerk commenced the funeral service
in a hurried, monotonous tone, and had nearly got to the fatal "we
therefore commit his body to the deep," the signal for launching, when
the ceremony was interrupted, and the officers and crew horrified by a
violent struggle of the supposed defunct, accompanied with angry
ejaculations.

"What the devil are you about? Let me out, let me out; d--n your eyes, I
ain't dead yet;--cut away your thundering hammock, and I'll let you know
whether I'm dead or not. This is a pretty how-d'ye-do, to be giving a
fellow a sea-toss before his time has come."

Half a dozen jack-knives were at work in an instant upon the stitches of
the hammock that inclosed the dead-alive--their owners being in their
eagerness utterly regardless of the risk of amputation to which their
haste subjected Old Cuff's nose; who, having burst his cerements and
shaken himself, was conducted below to the doctor.

Death, however, had not yet done with him. His next cruise was in the
Patriot service. Nothing very particular took place, till being sent
with a party "cutting out," as it is technically termed by seamen--that
is, capturing and bringing out vessels lying at anchor in an enemy's
port, he and several of his party were made prisoners, and, according to
the murderous system of warfare going on between the Spanish royal
forces and t