noiselessly
approached the unsuspecting Bob. It was one of the watch with the end
of a rope leading out of sight up the scuttle. Pausing an instant,
the sailor pressed softly the chest of his victim, sounding his
slumbers; and then hitching the cord to his ankle, returned to the
deck.

Hardly was his back turned, when a long limb was thrust from a hammock
opposite, and Doctor Long Ghost, leaping forth warily, whipped the
rope from Bob's ankle, and fastened it like lightning to a great
lumbering chest, the property of the man who had just disappeared.

Scarcely was the thing done, when lo! with a thundering bound, the
clumsy box was torn from its fastenings, and banging from side to
side, flew toward the scuttle. Here it jammed; and thinking that Bob,
who was as strong as a windlass, was grappling a beam and trying to
cut the line, the jokers on deck strained away furiously. On a
sudden, the chest went aloft, and striking against the mast, flew
open, raining down on the heads of a party the merciless shower of
things too numerous to mention.

Of course the uproar roused all hands, and when we hurried on deck,
there was the owner of the box, looking aghast at its scattered
contents, and with one wandering hand taking the altitude of a bump
on his head.

CHAPTER XII.

DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW

THE mirthfulness which at times reigned among us was in strange and
shocking contrast with the situation of some of the invalids. Thus at
least did it seem to me, though not to others.

But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing by far the
most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less grating to my
feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.

We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the sick who had
rapidly grown worse, died one night within an hour of each other.

One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several days had not
risen from it. During this period he was often delirious, starting
up and glaring around him, and sometimes wildly tossing his arms.

On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle watch
began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt something
clammy resting on me. It was the sick man's hand. Two or three times
during the evening previous, he had thrust it into my bunk, and I had
quietly removed it; but now I started and flung it from me. The arm
fell stark and stiff, and I knew that he was dead.

Waking the men, th