were closed, forming two
dark-blue pits in his face; his breath was coming and going with a
slow, long-drawn, mechanical precision. It was the mere foundering hull
of a man that was before me; and though it presented the well-known
features of my mess-mate, yet I knew that the living soul of Shenly
never more would look out of those eyes.

So warm had it been during the day, that the Surgeon himself, when
visiting the sick-bay, had entered it in his shirt-sleeves; and so warm
was now the night that even in the lofty top I had worn but a loose
linen frock and trowsers. But in this subterranean sick-bay, buried in
the very bowels of the ship, and at sea cut off from all ventilation,
the heat of the night calm was intense. The sweat dripped from me as if
I had just emerged from a bath; and stripping myself naked to the
waist, I sat by the side of the cot, and with a bit of crumpled
paper--put into my hand by the sailor I had relieved--kept fanning the
motionless white face before me.

I could not help thinking, as I gazed, whether this man's fate had not
been accelerated by his confinement in this heated furnace below; and
whether many a sick man round me might not soon improve, if but
permitted to swing his hammock in the airy vacancies of the half-deck
above, open to the port-holes, but reserved for the promenade of the
officers.

At last the heavy breathing grew more and more irregular, and gradually
dying away, left forever the unstirring form of Shenly.

Calling the Surgeon's steward, he at once told me to rouse the
master-at-arms, and four or five of my mess-mates. The master-at-arms
approached, and immediately demanded the dead man's bag, which was
accordingly dragged into the bay. Having been laid on the floor, and
washed with a bucket of water which I drew from the ocean, the body was
then dressed in a white frock, trowsers, and neckerchief, taken out of
the bag. While this was going on, the master-at-arms--standing over the
operation with his rattan, and directing myself and
mess-mates--indulged in much discursive levity, intended to manifest
his fearlessness of death.

Pierre, who had been a "_chummy_" of Shenly's, spent much time in tying
the neckerchief in an elaborate bow, and affectionately adjusting the
white frock and trowsers; but the master-at-arms put an end to this by
ordering us to carry the body up to the gun-deck. It was placed on the
death-board (used for that purpose), and we proceeded with