they were upon their
knees, with their bodies bent forward, and one or both of their hands
resting upon the planks.

The attitude was plainly not one of repose; and anyone near enough to
have observed the two men, or to have heard the whispered conversation
that was being carried on between them, would have come to the
conclusion that sleep was far from their thoughts.

In that deep darkness, however, no one noticed them; and although
several of their companions were lying but a few feet from the bottom of
the mast, these were either asleep or too distant to hear the
whisperings that passed between the two men kneeling in juxtaposition.

They continued to talk in very low whispers,--each in turn putting his
lips close to the ear of the other; and while doing so the subject of
their conversation might have been guessed at by their glances, or at
least the individual about whom they conversed.

This was a man who was lying stretched along the timbers, not far from
the bottom of the mast, and apparently asleep. In fact he must have
been asleep, as was testified by the stentorian snores that occasionally
escaped from his wide-spread nostrils.

This noisy slumberer was the Irishman, O'Gorman,--one of the parties to
that suspended fight, to be resumed by day break in the morning.
Whatever evil deeds this man may have done during his life,--and he had
performed not a few, for we have styled him only the least guilty of
that guilty crew,--he was certainly no coward. Thus to sleep, with such
a prospect on awaking, at least proved him recklessly indifferent to
death.

The two men by the mast,--whose eyes were evidently upon him,--had no
very clear view of him where he lay. Through the white mist they could
see only something like the shape of a human being recumbent along the
planks; and of that only the legs and lower half of the body. Even had
it been daylight they could not, from their position, have seen his head
and shoulders; for both would have been concealed by the empty rum-cask,
already mentioned, which stood upon its end exactly by the spot where
O'Gorman had rested his head.

The Irishman, above all others, had taken a delight in the contents of
that cask,--so long as a drop was left; and now that it was all gone,
perhaps the smell of the alcohol had influenced him in choosing his
place of repose.

Whether or not, he was now sleeping on a spot which was to prove the
last resting-place of his life. Crue