rtaken it. The men stood apart, in groups, discussing their woes,
and mutually condoling. No longer, of still moonlight nights, was the
song heard from the giddy tops; and few and far between were the
stories that were told. It was during this interval, so dismal to many,
that to the amazement of all hands, ten men were reported by the
master-at-arms to be intoxicated. They were brought up to the mast, and
at their appearance the doubts of the most skeptical were dissipated;
but whence they had obtained their liquor no one could tell. It was
observed, however at the time, that the tarry knaves all smelled of
lavender, like so many dandies.

After their examination they were ordered into the "brig," a jail-house
between two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners are kept. Here they
laid for some time, stretched out stark and stiff, with their arms
folded over their breasts, like so many effigies of the Black Prince on
his monument in Canterbury Cathedral.

Their first slumbers over, the marine sentry who stood guard over them
had as much as he could do to keep off the crowd, who were all
eagerness to find out how, in such a time of want, the prisoners had
managed to drink themselves into oblivion. In due time they were
liberated, and the secret simultaneously leaked out.

It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, who had suffered
severely from the common deprivation, had all at once been struck by a
brilliant idea. It had come to his knowledge that the purser's steward
was supplied with a large quantity of _Eau-de-Cologne_, clandestinely
brought out in the ship, for the purpose of selling it on his own
account, to the people of the coast; but the supply proving larger than
the demand, and having no customers on board the frigate but Lieutenant
Selvagee, he was now carrying home more than a third of his original
stock. To make a short story of it, this functionary, being called upon
in secret, was readily prevailed upon to part with a dozen bottles,
with whose contents the intoxicated party had regaled themselves.

The news spread far and wide among the men, being only kept secret from
the officers and underlings, and that night the long, crane-necked
Cologne bottles jingled in out-of-the-way corners and by-places, and,
being emptied, were sent flying out of the ports. With brown sugar,
taken from the mess-chests, and hot water begged from the galley-cooks,
the men made all manner of punches, toddies, and coc