!" roared a wounded
Lieutenant. The order was obeyed, and the heart-stricken sailor
returned to his post.

Tawney's recitals were enough to snap this man-of-war world's sword in
its scabbard. And thinking of all the cruel carnal glory wrought out by
naval heroes in scenes like these, I asked myself whether, indeed, that
was a glorious coffin in which Lord Nelson was entombed--a coffin
presented to him, during life, by Captain Hallowell; it had been dug
out of the main-most of the French line-of-battle ship L'Orient, which,
burning up with British fire, destroyed hundreds of Frenchmen at the
battle of the Nile.

Peace to Lord Nelson where he sleeps in his mouldering mast! but rather
would I be urned in the trunk of some green tree, and even in death
have the vital sap circulating round me, giving of my dead body to the
living foliage that shaded my peaceful tomb.

CHAPTER LXXV.

"SINK, BURN, AND DESTROY."

_Printed Admiralty orders in time of war_.

Among innumerable "_yarns and twisters_" reeled off in our main-top
during our pleasant run to the North, none could match those of Jack
Chase, our captain.

Never was there better company than ever-glorious Jack. The things
which most men only read of, or dream about, he had seen and
experienced. He had been a dashing smuggler in his day, and could tell
of a long nine-pounder rammed home with wads of French silks; of
cartridges stuffed with the finest gunpowder tea; of cannister-shot
full of West India sweetmeats; of sailor frocks and trowsers, quilted
inside with costly laces; and table legs, hollow as musket barrels,
compactly stowed with rare drugs and spices. He could tell of a wicked
widow, too--a beautiful receiver of smuggled goods upon the English
coast--who smiled so sweetly upon the smugglers when they sold her
silks and laces, cheap as tape and ginghams. She called them gallant
fellows, hearts of game; and bade them bring her more.

He could tell of desperate fights with his British majesty's cutters,
in midnight coves upon a stormy coast; of the capture of a reckless
band, and their being drafted on board a man-of-war; of their swearing
that their chief was slain; of a writ of habeas corpus sent on board
for one of them for a debt--a reserved and handsome man--and his going
ashore, strongly suspected of being the slaughtered captain, and this a
successful scheme for his escape.

But more than all, Jack could tell of the battle of Navarino, for