ve; and he lay
stretched on the table as if he were practising swimming in Doctor
Johnson's fashion. As for Davis, the second mate, he had his face bent
down in his hands, apparently unmindful of everything but his own pain,
but Captain Miles speedily sprang to his feet and was starting to attack
the cause of the uproar with one of the broken legs of his chair when
just at that moment Mr Marline poked his nose down the open skylight
from the poop above.

"What's the matter?" he asked suavely. "What is all the row about?"

"Come down and see," said Captain Miles savagely. "Talk of a bull in a
china-shop; why, that would be child's play to a cow in a cabin!"

Mr Marline burst out laughing at this, and so too did Captain Miles
himself as soon as he had spoken the words, while I couldn't help
joining in, it was all so funny. Then the first mate came down with two
or three of the hands to remove the violent animal, which had now jammed
itself under Captain Miles' own cot in his private sanctum beyond the
cuddy.

But, Mrs Brindle was not so easily dislodged, one of the sailors having
to get through the stern port in order to raise the cot while the other
men pulled at her legs.

She was evidently determined not to be moved against her will; for, on
being lugged out again into the main cabin, she quickly shook off the
grasp of her captors, cantering out of the sliding-doors, with her tail
in the air, bellowing still furiously and butting at those in her way.

Her course was soon arrested, however. As she bounded forwards along
the deck she came to the open hatchway leading to the hold, where
tumbling down on top of the rum puncheons, before anyone could
interpose, she broke her neck instanter.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," says the old proverb, the
truth of which was exemplified in this instance. If the captain lost
his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the
accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and
all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the carcass
of the unfortunate animal.

"I wouldn't have lost her for twenty pounds!" said Captain Miles on the
poop later on, when he and the first mate were talking over the strange
way in which the thing all happened.

"Humph!" observed Mr Marline slyly in his dry way; "I think she gave
you one or two on account before she performed the happy despatch, eh?"

"Funny dog!" exclaimed Ca