our dangling ropes,
cut and sundered in all directions, would be bleeding tar at every
yard; and strew with jagged splinters from our wounded planks, the
gun-deck might resemble a carpenter's shop. _Then_, when all was over,
and all hands would be piped to take down the hammocks from the exposed
nettings (where they play the part of the cotton bales at New Orleans),
we might find bits of broken shot, iron bolts and bullets in our
blankets. And, while smeared with blood like butchers, the surgeon and
his mates would be amputating arms and legs on the berth-deck, an
underling of the carpenter's gang would be new-legging and arming the
broken chairs and tables in the Commodore's cabin; while the rest of
his _squad_ would be _splicing_ and _fishing_ the shattered masts and
yards. The scupper-holes having discharged the last rivulet of blood,
the decks would be washed down; and the galley-cooks would be going
fore and aft, sprinkling them with hot vinegar, to take out the
shambles' smell from the planks; which, unless some such means are
employed, often create a highly offensive effluvia for weeks after a
fight.

_Then_, upon mustering the men, and calling the quarter-bills by the
light of a battle-lantern, many a wounded seaman with his arm in a
sling, would answer for some poor shipmate who could never more make
answer for himself:

"Tom Brown?"

"Killed, sir."

"Jack Jewel?"

"Killed, sir."

"Joe Hardy?"

"Killed, sir."

And opposite all these poor fellows' names, down would go on the
quarter-bills the bloody marks of red ink--a murderer's fluid, fitly
used on these occasions.

CHAPTER XVII.

AWAY! SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH CUTTERS, AWAY!

It was the morning succeeding one of these _general quarters_ that we
picked up a life-buoy, descried floating by.

It was a circular mass of cork, about eight inches thick and four feet
in diameter, covered with tarred canvas. All round its circumference
there trailed a number of knotted ropes'-ends, terminating in fanciful
Turks' heads. These were the life-lines, for the drowning to clutch.
Inserted into the middle of the cork was an upright, carved pole,
somewhat shorter than a pike-staff. The whole buoy was embossed with
barnacles, and its sides festooned with sea-weeds. Dolphins were
sporting and flashing around it, and one white bird was hovering over
the top of the pole. Long ago, this thing must have been thrown
over-board to save some poor wretch, wh