kipper's intolerable tyranny, there were a few of
the men--and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the
ship--who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful
demeanour, and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded
by the captain's absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a
quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their
next neighbour. To-day, however, this sort of thing was conspicuously
absent; and I was at first disposed to attribute the unwonted gloom to
the men's horror and regret at the lamentable accident of the previous
evening. But that, I felt again, would scarcely account for it; for,
however sincere may be Jack's attachment to his shipmates whilst they
are alive and with him, they are no sooner dead and buried than, from
his quickly acquired habit of promptly casting behind him all
disquieting memories, he forgets all about them and their fate.

At length, as the day wore on and drew to a peaceful close, my
misgivings, such as they were--and they were, after all, so slight as
scarcely to deserve mention--passed away; and at eight bells I retired
to my hammock with a dawning hope that perhaps, after all, the
collective remonstrance of the officers was about to bear good fruit.

My mind being thus at rest, I at once sank into a profound sleep, from
which I was abruptly startled by a loud noise of some kind, though what
it was I could not for the moment make out. Almost immediately
afterwards, however, I heard it again--a loud furious combined shout of
many voices from the fore part of the ship. Feeling instinctively that
something was wrong, I leaped from my hammock--as also did Courtenay, my
only companion in the berth--and began hurriedly to search for my
clothes by the dim light of the smoky lamp which hung swaying from the
deck-beam overhead. Before, however, I had time to do more than don my
socks, a grizzled weatherbeaten main-topman named Ned Sykes made his
appearance in the doorway of the berth, with a drawn cutlass in his hand
and a pair of pistols in his belt. He looked intently at us both for a
moment, and then said, in a gruff but kindly tone of voice:

"Muster Lascelles, and Muster Courtenay, ain't it? Ha! that's all
right; I reckoned I should find you two young gen'lemen here, safe
enough. Now, you two, just slip into your hammicks again as fast as you
knows how, and stay there until I gives you leave to get out of 'em