e morning, the boatswain and his four mates stood
round the main hatchway, and after giving the usual whistle, made the
customary announcement--"_All hands bury the dead, ahoy!_"

In a man-of-war, every thing, even to a man's funeral and burial,
proceeds with the unrelenting promptitude of the martial code. And
whether it is _all hands bury the dead!_ or _all hands splice the
main-brace_, the order is given in the same hoarse tones.

Both officers and men assembled in the lee waist, and through that
bareheaded crowd the mess-mates of Shenly brought his body to the same
gangway where it had thrice winced under the scourge. But there is
something in death that ennobles even a pauper's corpse; and the
Captain himself stood bareheaded before the remains of a man whom, with
his hat on, he had sentenced to the ignominious gratings when alive.

"_I am the resurrection and the life!_" solemnly began the Chaplain, in
full canonicals, the prayer-book in his hand.

"Damn you! off those booms!" roared a boatswain's mate to a crowd of
top-men, who had elevated themselves to gain a better view of the scene.

"_We commit this body to the deep!_" At the word, Shenly's mess-mates
tilted the board, and the dead sailor sank in the sea.

"Look aloft," whispered Jack Chase. "See that bird! it is the spirit of
Shenly."

Gazing upward, all beheld a snow-white, solitary fowl, which--whence
coming no one could tell--had been hovering over the main-mast during
the service, and was now sailing far up into the depths of the sky.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

WHAT REMAINS OF A MAN-OF-WAR'S-MAN AFTER HIS BURIAL AT SEA.

Upon examining Shenly's bag, a will was found, scratched in pencil,
upon a blank leaf in the middle of his Bible; or, to use the phrase of
one of the seamen, in the midships, atween the Bible and Testament,
where the Pothecary (Apocrypha) uses to be.

The will was comprised in one solitary sentence, exclusive of the dates
and signatures: "_In case I die on the voyage, the Purser will please
pay over my wages to my wife, who lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire_."

Besides the testator's, there were two signatures of witnesses.

This last will and testament being shown to the Purser, who, it seems,
had been a notary, or surrogate, or some sort of cosy chamber
practitioner in his time, he declared that it must be "proved." So the
witnesses were called, and after recognising their hands to the paper;
for the purpose of additiona