onour, when there's that fellow Jones
breaking the very back o' me with his oar, and he never touching the
water all the while?"

"You lie," cried Jones; "I'm pulling the boat by myself against the
whole of the larboard oars."

"He's rowing _dry_, your honour--only making bilave."

"Do you call this rowing dry?" cried another, as a sea swept over the
boat, fore and aft, wetting every body to the skin.

"Now, your honour, just look and see if I a'n't pulling the very arms
off me?" cried Sullivan.

"Is there water enough to cross the bridge, Swinburne?" said I to the
coxswain.

"Plenty, Mr Simple; it is but quarter ebb, and the sooner we are on
board the better."

We were now past Devil's Point, and the sea was very heavy: the boat
plunged in the trough, so that I was afraid that we should break her
back. She was soon half full of water, and the two after oars were laid
in for the men to bale. "Plase your honour, hadn't I better cut free
the legs of them ducks and geese, and allow them to swim for their
lives?" cried Sullivan, resting on his oar; "the poor birds will be
drowned else in their own _iliment_."

"No, no--pull away as hard as you can."

By this time the drunken men in the bottom of the boat began to be very
uneasy, from the quantity of water which washed about them, and made
several staggering attempts to get on their legs. They fell down again
upon the ducks and geese, the major part of which were saved from being
drowned by being suffocated. The sea on the Bridge was very heavy: and
although the tide swept us out, we were nearly swamped. Soft bread was
washing about the bottom of the boat; the parcels of sugar, pepper, and
salt, were wet through with the salt water, and a sudden jerk threw the
captain's steward, who was seated upon the gunwale close to the
after-oar, right upon the whole of the crockery and eggs, which added to
the mass of destruction. A few more seas shipped completed the job, and
the gun-room steward was in despair. "That's a darling!" cried
Sullivan: "the politest boat in the whole fleet. She makes more bows
and curtsys than the finest couple in the land. Give way, my lads, and
work the crater stuff out of your elbows, and the first lieutenant will
see us all so sober, and so wet in the bargain, and think we're all so
dry, that perhaps he'll be after giving us a raw nip when we get on
board."

In a quarter of an hour we were nearly alongside, but the men pulled so
b