years ago, at all events, when I was in
the thick of it at Canton!"

"That's thrue, sor," put in Corporal Macan, who had lately regained his
stripes after a long spell of good behaviour that atoned for his debauch
at the Cape which lost him his rank; the Irishman now being engaged in
serving the bow gun of the gunboat with the utmost deliberation, taking
steady aim with each shot which he pitched into the cavalier of the
nearest battery and knocking the gun into "smithereens" at his third
attempt, though, for every weapon of the enemy which we silenced they
seemed to bring a hundred others to bear on us. "Jist kape hopping
about an' faith ye'll niver be hit, sure. Och, murther, what's that
now?"

As he jerked out the sudden exclamation, he certainly acted up to his
advice; for, he gave a hop that took him some ten feet in the air ere he
fell down on the deck, all covered with blood.

"Poor Macan!" said Mr Stormcock, bending over his prostrate form, and
trying to lift him in vain. "Well, he's done for at last, I'm afraid.
We could have better spared a better man, perhaps!"

"He's dead, sir, sure enough," corroborated one of the marines who had
been assisting to work the big bow gun, the carriage of which had been
smashed, on one side by a heavy chain shot, which must, we all thought,
have settled the corporal at the same time. "He'll never eat plum duff
again, poor chap. He was a good one over his vittles, too, was the
corporal, and likewise at his drink!"

"Faix, ye lie, ye divil," cried the seemingly lifeless man, reviving at
this moment and struggling to his feet. "I'm not d'id at all, at all!
D'ye think now I'm going to be kilt--by a Haythin Chaynee? Begorrah,
whin I am kilt, may the saints in h'iven presairve me from it yit!--I
hopes as how it'll be by a Roosian, or a Proosian, or a dacint Christian
man of some sort or t'other, an' not, faix, by one of thim yaller-faced
Johnnies over yander!"

We all laughed at this, it being quite a relief to find our old friend
the corporal had not yet lost "the number of his mess," as he was the
life and soul of the ship on the lower deck, drunk or sober!

He had, however, a narrow squeak of it; for a splinter had jogged his
leg from the ankle to the knee, while the bollard on which he had been
standing had been shot away under his feet.

This caused that wonderful jump of his which had surprised me so much,
himself all the more, too, the heavy fall he had on the