en?" roared the First
Lieutenant, through his trumpet. "D----n you, you are clumsy as Russian
bears! don't you see the main--top-men are nearly off the yard? Bear a
hand, bear a hand, or I'll stop your grog all round! You, Baldy! are
you going to sleep there in the bunt?"

While this was being said, poor Baldy--his hat off, his face streaming
with perspiration--was frantically exerting himself, piling up the
ponderous folds of canvas in the middle of the yard; ever and anon
glancing at victorious Jack Chase, hard at work at the
main-top-sail-yard before him.

At last, the sail being well piled up, Baldy jumped with both feet into
the _bunt_, holding on with one hand to the chain "_tie_," and in that
manner was violently treading down the canvas, to pack it close.

"D----n you, Baldy, why don't you move, you crawling caterpillar;"
roared the First Lieutenant.

Baldy brought his whole weight to bear on the rebellious sail, and in
his frenzied heedlessness let go his hold on the _tie_.

"You, Baldy! are you afraid of falling?" cried the First Lieutenant.

At that moment, with all his force, Baldy jumped down upon the sail;
the _bunt gasket_ parted; and a dark form dropped through the air.
Lighting upon the _top-rim_, it rolled off; and the next instant, with
a horrid crash of all his bones, Baldy came, like a thunderbolt, upon
the deck.

Aboard of most large men-of-war there is a stout oaken platform, about
four feet square, on each side of the quarter-deck. You ascend to it by
three or four steps; on top, it is railed in at the sides, with
horizontal brass bars. It is called _the Horse Block;_ and there the
officer of the deck usually stands, in giving his orders at sea.

It was one of these horse blocks, now unoccupied, that broke poor
Baldy's fall. He fell lengthwise across the brass bars, bending them
into elbows, and crushing the whole oaken platform, steps and all,
right down to the deck in a thousand splinters.

He was picked up for dead, and carried below to the surgeon. His bones
seemed like those of a man broken on the wheel, and no one thought he
would survive the night. But with the surgeon's skillful treatment he
soon promised recovery. Surgeon Cuticle devoted all his science to this
case.

A curious frame-work of wood was made for the maimed man; and placed in
this, with all his limbs stretched out, Baldy lay flat on the floor of
the Sick-bay, for many weeks. Upon our arrival home, he was able to