to me of the anxiety those instants often
caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would
postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a
good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to
work slept about the decks--except, of course, the lookouts and wheel.
The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do
it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a
slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the
watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which
gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another
matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that
possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large,
tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the _Albany_, which in 1854 disappeared in
the West Indies. The men who have been four hours on deck are
thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and
do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are
mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such
circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an
acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the
outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his
predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually,
"It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and
incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the
narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist.
I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her
before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor
of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum
first."

But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt
roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the
officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft--the "Haul
out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards
as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas,
mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the
reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand
of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and
absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they
were getting on; whether the yard was