y stooping over him. It was just in the position
that Smallbones lay on the forecastle of the cutter on that day morning,
when he was about to keel-haul him, and the corporal, in his state of
mental and bodily depression, was certain that it was the ghost of the
poor lad whom he had so often tortured. Terror raised his hair
erect--his mouth was wide open--he could not speak--he tried to analyse
it, but a wave dashed in his face--his eyes and mouth were filled with
salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on the thwarts of the
boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom or not; there he
lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to his eyes, and his
huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limb trembling with
blended cold and fright. One hour more, and there would have been
nothing but corporal parts of Corporal Spitter.

The reason why the last movement of the corporal did not swamp the boat,
was simply that it was aground on one of the flats; and the figure which
had alarmed the conscience-stricken corporal, was nothing more than the
outside beacon of a weir for catching fish, being a thin post with a
cross bar to it, certainly not unlike Smallbones in figure, supposing
him to have put his arms in that position.

For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the day
dawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. The
fishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was their
success, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first they
could not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but the
capacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, by
degrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it,
and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise him
up, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a little
schnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes,
and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs,
they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogs
to the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight,
two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw the
fish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of the
boat. The fishermen's wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden,
imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusual
success, and were not