but swung to an instinct in
me--the instinct diffused through all animated nature, the same that
prompts even a worm to turn under the heel. Locking souls-with him, I
meant to drag Captain Claret from this earthly tribunal of his to that
of Jehovah and let Him decide between us. No other way could I escape
the scourge.

Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be
exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused. The
privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of dying himself,
and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us without a
purpose. These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable
existence.

"To the gratings, sir!" said Captain Claret; "do you hear?"

My eye was measuring the distance between him and the sea.

"Captain Claret," said a voice advancing from the crowd. I turned to
see who this might be, that audaciously interposed at a juncture like
this. It was the same remarkably handsome and gentlemanly corporal of
marines, Colbrook, who has been previously alluded to, in the chapter
describing killing time in a man-of-war.

"I know that man," said Colbrook, touching his cap, and speaking in a
mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner; "and I know that he would
not be found absent from his station, if he knew where it was."

This speech was almost unprecedented. Seldom or never before had a
marine dared to speak to the Captain of a frigate in behalf of a seaman
at the mast. But there was something so unostentatiously commanding in
the calm manner of the man, that the Captain, though astounded, did not
in any way reprimand him. The very unusualness of his interference
seemed Colbrook's protection.

Taking heart, perhaps, from Colbrook's example, Jack Chase interposed,
and in a manly but carefully respectful manner, in substance repeated
the corporal's remark, adding that he had never found me wanting in the
top.

The Captain looked from Chase to Colbrook, and from Colbrook to
Chase--one the foremost man among the seamen, the other the foremost
man among the soldiers--then all round upon the packed and silent crew,
and, as if a slave to Fate, though supreme Captain of a frigate, he
turned to the First Lieutenant, made some indifferent remark, and
saying to me _you may go_, sauntered aft into his cabin; while I, who,
in the desperation of my soul, had but just escaped being a murderer
and a suicide, almost burst into tears of thanks-