tone, and there was a second of
shuddering dismay.

"Jimmy, be a man!" he shrieked, passionately. Every mouth was wide open,
not an eyelid winked. He stared wildly, twitching all over; he bent
his body forward like a man peering at an horror. "Go!" he shouted, and
sprang out of the crowd with his arm extended. "Go, Jimmy!--Jimmy, go!
Go!" His fingers touched the head of the body, and the grey package
started reluctantly to whizz off the lifted planks all at once, with the
suddenness of a flash of lightning. The crowd stepped forward like one
man; a deep Ah--h--h! came out vibrating from the broad chests. The ship
rolled as if relieved of an unfair burden; the sails flapped. Belfast,
supported by Archie, gasped hysterically; and Charley, who anxious to
see Jimmy's last dive, leaped headlong on the rail, was too late to see
anything but the faint circle of a vanishing ripple.

Mr. Baker, perspiring abundantly, read out the last prayer in a deep
rumour of excited men and fluttering sails. "Amen!" he said in an
unsteady growl, and closed the book.

"Square the yards!" thundered a voice above his head. All hands gave a
jump; one or two dropped their caps; Mr. Baker looked up surprised.
The master, standing on the break of the poop, pointed to the westward.
"Breeze coming," he said, "Man the weather braces." Mr. Baker crammed
the book hurriedly into his pocket. "Forward, there--let go the
foretack!" he hailed joyfully, bareheaded and brisk; "Square the
foreyard, you port-watch!"--"Fair wind--fair wind," muttered the men going
to the braces.--"What did I tell you?" mumbled old Singleton, flinging
down coil after coil with hasty energy; "I knowed it--he's gone, and here
it comes."

It came with the sound of a lofty and powerful sigh. The sails filled,
the ship gathered way, and the waking sea began to murmur sleepily of
home to the ears of men.

That night, while the ship rushed foaming to the Northward before a
freshening gale, the boatswain unbosomed himself to the petty officers'
berth:--"The chap was nothing but trouble," he said, "from the moment he
came aboard--d'ye remember--that night in Bombay? Been bullying all
that softy crowd--cheeked the old man--we had to go fooling all over a
half-drowned ship to save him. Dam' nigh a mutiny all for him--and now
the mate abused me like a pickpocket for forgetting to dab a lump of
grease on them planks. So I did, but you ought to have known better,
too, than to leave a nail