riking
the shoulder of a wave, he heard somebody tumble.

"Who's that?" he asked.

And the nasal sing-song of the poetical Tucket answered, "'Awaking with a
start, the waters heave around me, and on high the winds lift up their
voices; I depart, whither I know not; but the hour's gone by when
Boston's lessening shores can grieve or glad mine eye.'"

And Tucket crept back into his bunk.

"We're all going to the bottom, I'm sure," whined John Winch, from the
top berth, over Frank. "I believe we're sinking now."

"Well," said Frank, "the water will reach me first, and you'll be one of
the last to go under; you've that for a satisfaction."

"I believe that's what he chose the top berth for," said Harris.

"How can you be joking, such a time as this?" said John. "Here's Atwater,
fast asleep! Are you, Atwater?"

"No," said the soldier, who lay sick, with his thoughts far away.

"Ellis is; ain't you, Ellis?" And Jack reached to shake his comrade. "How
can you be asleep, Ned, when we're all going to the bottom?"

"Let me alone!" growled Ned.

"We are going to the bottom," said Jack,--the ship just then rolling in
the trough of the sea.

"I can't help it if we are," replied Ellis, sick and stupefied; "and I
don't care much. Let me go to the bottom in peace."

"O Lord! O Lord! O Lord!" moaned Jack, in despair, feeling more like
praying than ever before in his life.

Tucket had a line of poetry to suit his case:--

"'And then some prayed--the first time in some years;'" he said, quoting
Byron. And he proceeded with a description of a shipwreck, which was not
very edifying to the unhappy Winch: "'Then rose from sea to sky the wild
farewell,'" etc.

"I never would have enlisted if I was such a coward as Jack," said
Harris, contemptuously.

"I ain't a coward," retorted Jack. "I enlisted to fight, not to go to sea
and be drowned."

"Drownded--ded--ded--dead!" said Tucket.

"O, yes," said Harris, "you are mighty fierce for getting ashore and
fighting. But when you were on land you were just as glad to get to sea.
Now I hope you'll get enough of it. I wouldn't mind a shipwreck myself,
just to hear you scream."

Then Tucket: "'At first one universal shriek there rushed, louder than
the loud ocean,--like a crash of echoing thunder; and then all was
hushed, save the wild wind, and the remorseless dash of billows; but at
intervals there gushed, accompanied with a convulsive splash, a solitary
shriek--the babbling c