815-._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From "Two years before the Mast."

=_228._= LOSS OF A MAN AT SEA.

Death is at all tunes solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies
on shore; his body remains with his friends, and "the mourners go about
the streets;" but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there
is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which
give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore--you follow his
body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared
for the event. There is always something which helps you to realize it
when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down
by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a
real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you--at your side--you hear
his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows
his loss. Then too, at sea--to use a homely but expressive phrase--you
miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark,
upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear
no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and
they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new
faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth
in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is
mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out
with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice,
for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses
feels the loss.

All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of
it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by
the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more
quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The
officers are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully aloft. The
lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor's rude
eulogy, "Well, poor George is gone. His cruise is up soon. He knew his
work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate." Then usually follows
some allusion to another world, for sailors are almost all believers;
but their notions and opinions are unfixed, and at loose ends. They
say,--"God won't be hard upon the poor fellow," and seldom get beyond
the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard
trea