odies in an
erect attitude. It was not any rocking on the part of the raft that was
producing these eccentric movements. The sea was perfectly quiescent,
and the rude embarkation rested upon it like a log.

The cause might have been discovered near the bottom of the mast, where
stood a barrel or cask of medium size, from which proceeded an
exhalation, telling its contents to be rum.

The staggering skeletons were _drunk_!

It was not that noisy intoxication that tells of recent indulgence, but
rather of the nervous wreck which succeeds it; and the words heard,
instead of being the loud banterings of inebriated men, were more like
the ravings and gibbering of maniacs. No wonder: since they who uttered
them _were_ mad,--mad with _mania potu_! If they were ever to recover,
it would be the last time they were likely to be afflicted by the same
disease,--at least on board that embarkation. Not from any virtuous
resolve on their parts, but simply from the fact that the cause of their
insanity no longer existed.

The rum-cask was as dry inside as out. There was no longer a drop of
the infernal liquor on the raft; no more spirit of any kind to produce
fresh drunkenness or renewed _delirium tremens_!

The madmen were not heeded by the others; but allowed to totter about,
and give speech to their incoherent mumblings!--sometimes diversified by
yells, or peals of mania laughter,--always thickly interlarded with
oaths and other blasphemous utterances.

It was only when disturbing the repose of some one less _exalted_ than
themselves, or when two of them chanced to come into collision, that a
scene would ensue,--in some instances extending to almost every
individual on the raft, and ending by one or other of the delirious
disputants getting "chucked" into the sea, and having a swim before
recovering foothold on the frail embarkation. This the ducked
individual would be certain to do. Drunk as he might have been, and
maudlin as he might be, his instincts were never so benumbed as to
render him regardless of self-preservation. Even from out his haggard
eyes still gleamed enough of intelligence to tell that those dark
triangular objects, moving in scores around the raft, and cutting the
water, so swift and sheer, were the dorsal fins of the dreaded sharks.
Each one was a sight that, to a sailor's eye, even when "blind drunk,"
brings habitual dread.

The _douche_, and the fright attending it, would usually restore his