the body neither spoke nor cried.

Tristram's comrades, it is true, were in no doubtful plight.
The hand of death had impressed them beyond chance of mistake.
They were thrown over limb by limb.

Tristram's was the only body that remained entire, and to all
appearance he too was dead. Now, he had been chained by the left
leg, in which (as we have said) he was severely wounded. The keeper,
not knowing that the chain had been blown away, grasped this leg in
his hand, felt for the ring and tried to wrench it open.

Fortunately he tugged so lustily and inflicted so sharp a pang in the
wounded limb that Tristram opened his eyes and sobbed with the
anguish of it. The fellow let go his grasp.

Then, suddenly perceiving what their intention had been, the poor
youth screamed out at the top of his voice:

"Please do not throw me over. I'm not dead yet!"

Upon this they carried him to a small chamber in the hold and tossed
him down among a heap of groaning wounded, upon a cable made up into
a _rouleau_, perhaps the hardest bed on which a sick man can lie.
About him were stretched indiscriminately petty officers, sailors,
soldiers, and slaves. The air could reach this den only through a
scuttle about two feet square, and the heat and stench were therefore
something intolerable. A surgeon was at work among the sufferers.
Reaching Tristram at length, he stopped the bleeding of his wounds
with a little spirits of wine. He had no bandages; nor did he come
again to see if his patient were dead or alive.

But, indeed, our hero was past caring for this, and when he regained
consciousness after a third swoon it was to find himself in other
hands.

For the pursuing English, aided by the wind (which had shifted a
little farther to the northward), had swept down upon the galleys and
taken them, with their prize, and were now towing them triumphantly
into Sheerness.

_IX.--At Sheerness._

At ten o'clock next morning, after a prodigious breakfast at
Sheerness, Captain Barker and Captain Runacles (whose wounded arm
was slung in a silk kerchief) strolled down to the waterside to have
a look at the strange vessels they had so obstinately defied.
They explored with especial care the unfortunate _L'Heureuse_,
visiting first the Commodore's cabin, upon the boards of which the
blood of Roderick Salt was hardly dry. It cannot be said that they
felt much sorrow for his fate; for to pity a traitor was a height to
which the f