ent
into a forecastle, and the hurrying throng of nurses into the crew; and
he would come to a sitting posture and shout, 'Hump yourselves, HUMP
yourselves, you petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers! going to be
all DAY getting that hatful of freight out?' and supplement this
explosion with a firmament-obliterating irruption or profanity which
nothing could stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and then
while these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the
cotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It was bad
for the others, of course--this noise and these exhibitions; so the
doctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. But, in his mind or
out of it, he would not take it. He said his wife had been killed by
that treacherous drug, and he would die before he would take it. He
suspected that the doctors were concealing it in his ordinary medicines
and in his water--so he ceased from putting either to his lips. Once,
when he had been without water during two sweltering days, he took the
dipper in his hand, and the sight of the limpid fluid, and the misery of
his thirst, tempted him almost beyond his strength; but he mastered
himself and threw it away, and after that he allowed no more to be
brought near him. Three times I saw him carried to the death-room,
insensible and supposed to be dying; but each time he revived, cursed
his attendants, and demanded to be taken back. He lived to be mate of a
steamboat again.

But he was the only one who went to the death-room and returned alive.
Dr. Peyton, a principal physician, and rich in all the attributes that
go to constitute high and flawless character, did all that educated
judgment and trained skill could do for Henry; but, as the newspapers
had said in the beginning, his hurts were past help. On the evening of
the sixth day his wandering mind busied itself with matters far away,
and his nerveless fingers 'picked at his coverlet.' His hour had struck;
we bore him to the death-room, poor boy.

Chapter 21 A Section in My Biography

IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I
dropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent
work gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time drifted
smoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed--and hoped--that I was
going to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheel when
my mission was ended. But by and by the