hammock which serves the living as a bed by night is
also their coffin and their shroud. It so served Corporal Murray.

[Illustration: "WITH A FRIGHTFUL ROAR THE DEFECTIVE CARTRIDGE EXPLODED"]

Shortly after four bells (six o'clock) on the evening of the day on
which the accident occurred, the boatswain's mate sent the shrill piping
of his whistle echoing through the ship, following it with the words,
doleful and long drawn out:

"All hands shift-ft-ft into clean-n-n blue and stand by to bury the
dead-d-d!"

When the crew assembled on the gun deck in obedience to the call, the
sun was just disappearing beyond the edge of the distant horizon. Its
last rays entered the open port, showing to us the dead man's figure
outlined under an American flag. The body had been placed upon a grating
in front of an open port, and several men were stationed close by in
readiness to launch it into the sea.

The ceaseless swaying of the ship in the trough of the sea, the engines
having been stopped, set the lines of blue uniformed men swinging and
nodding, and, as the surgeon, Dr. McGowan, read the Episcopal service,
it seemed in the half light as if every man were keeping time with the
cadence.

The words of the service, beautiful and impressive under such novel
circumstances, echoed and whispered along the deck, and at the sentence,
"We commit this body to the deep," the grating was raised gently and,
with a peculiar _swish_, the body, heavily weighted, slid down to the
water's edge and plunged sullenly into the sea. A moment more and the
service was finished, the bugler sounding "pipe down." A salute, three
times repeated, was fired by sixteen men of the marine guard.

* * * * *

The voyage down the coast was utilized in making good men-o'-war's men
of the "Yankee's" crew. Captain Brownson believes thoroughly in the
efficacy of drill, and he lost no time in living up to his belief. When
all the circumstances are taken into consideration, the task allotted to
the captain of the "Yankee" by the fortunes of war, was both peculiar
and difficult.

On his return from Europe, where he had been sent to select vessels for
the improvised navy, he was ordered by the Navy Department at Washington
to take command of the auxiliary cruiser "Yankee." This meant that he
was to assume charge of a ship hastily converted from an ordinary
merchant steamer, and to fight the battles of his country with a crew
compose