made lame
for life. Two of the boys stationed on the quarter-deck were killed.
They were both Portuguese. A man who saw one killed afterwards told me
that his powder caught fire, and burnt the flesh almost off his face.
In this pitiable situation the agonized boy lifted up both hands, as
if imploring relief, when a passing shot instantly cut him in two."

But the narrative of this young sailor, a boy in years, is almost too
horrible for reproduction. He tells of men struck by three or four
missiles at once, and hacked to pieces; of mangled sailors, mortally
wounded, but still living, thrown overboard to end their sufferings;
of the monotonous drip of the blood on the deck, as desperately
wounded men were carried past. The brave seaman who left his bed of
sickness for the post of duty had his head carried away by a
cannon-ball. The schoolmaster who looked after the education of the
midshipmen was killed. Even a poor goat, kept by the officers for her
milk, was cut down by a cannon-ball, and, after hobbling piteously
about the deck, was mercifully thrown overboard. And this was Sunday,
Christmas Day!

The spot amidships where our sailor-lad was stationed must have been
the hottest station in the whole ship. Many years later, as Herman
Melville, the author of several exciting sea-tales, was walking the
deck of a man-of-war with an old negro, "Tawney," who had served on
the "Macedonian," the veteran stopped at a point abreast the
main-mast. "This part of the ship," said he, "we called the
slaughter-house, on board the 'Macedonian.' Here the men fell, five
and six at a time. An enemy always directs its shot here, in order to
hurl over the mast, if possible. The beams and carlines overhead in
the 'Macedonian' slaughter-house were spattered with blood and brains.
About the hatchways it looked like a butcher's stall. A shot entering
at one of the port-holes dashed dead two-thirds of a gun's crew. The
captain of the next gun, dropping his lock-string, which he had just
pulled, turned over the heap of bodies, to see who they were; when,
perceiving an old messmate who had sailed with him in many cruises, he
burst into tears, and taking the corpse up in his arms, and going to
the side with it, held it over the water a moment, and eying it,
cried, 'O God! Tom'--'Hang your prayers over that thing! Overboard
with it, and down to your gun!' The order was obeyed, and the
heart-stricken sailor returned to his post."

Amid such scene