elow, to help clear up the
messes, and take the `gashing-tubs,' in which the refuse of all our
meals was thrown, up above to the upper deck and pitch the contents over
the side, it being impossible for us to open any of the ports on the
lower deck, from the heavy rolling seas that came toppling inboard every
now and again.

The job was not a nice one, nor an easy one either; and the second day
we were knocking about in the Bay an accident happened while we were at
it that nearly settled the hash of one of us, making him more fit to go
into the `gashing-tub' himself than to handle it!

Four of us were trying to hoist our burden up the slippery ladder, which
was rendered all the more slippery by the water washing down in a
cataract every time a roller came over the forecastle and filled the
waist of the corvette; not to speak of the rolling of the ship from port
to starboard, and from starboard to port, varied by an occasional lift
up in mid-air atop of some huge billow, and a dive down the next moment
into the hollow of the waves, as if we were going down to Davy Jones's
locker.

Mick, who was the leading member of our quartet, on the top step of the
ladder, was holding on like grim death to the side-rope with one hand,
and stretching out the other towards Finlayson, a new boy whom we had
not seen before till we joined the _Active_, he having been drafted from
the _Boscawen_ at Portland; and who, in turn, had hold of the tub and
was clutching Mick's hand to steady himself.

"Pull away, ye divvle!" cried Mick. "One more stip, begorrah, an' we'll
be landid on the dick!"

"Shove up, you fellers below there!" shouted Finlayson, in response to
this, to myself and another boy who had come forwards from the after
part of the mess-deck to our assistance, but whose face I had not seen,
from the fact of my back being turned to him. "Shove up, carn't you!
This chap atop here an' me is bearin' all the weight on it!"

"That's all very well," I growled, for the tub was slipping back on me,
though I was holding it with both hands and shoving my knees into the
steps of the ladder to keep myself steady. "Pull away, you beggar, your
self! Aye, and you too, Mick, aloft there! I shall tumble back if you
don't take the weight of the tub off me!"

"Begorrah, Tom, me hearty, ye shan't git kilt wid that there gashing-
tub!" cried Mick, squinting down the hatchway and seeing my predicament.
"Pull away, ye young divvle--it's you, ye