s on deck; but when he
gets there he tips us a faint, and falls down on the carronade slide,
and his hat rolled off his head into the waist. He tried, but he was so
weak that he couldn't get up on his sticks again.

"Well, sir, the captain goes up to him, and says something about zeal,
and all that, and tells him he must go down below again, because he's
quite incapable, and orders the men at the foremost carronades to take
him to his cot. Now, sir, just as we were handing him down the ladder,
for I was captain of the gun, a shot comes in at the second port, and
takes off his skull as he lays in our arms, and never hurts another man.
He was dead in no time; and what was more curious, it was the only shot
that hit the frigate. The Frenchman got into Brest--so it was no
action, after all.

"So, you see, Mr Macallan, in two _scrummages_ only two men were killed
out of hundreds, and they were the two who had killed the cat! Now,
that's what I calls proof positive, for I seed it all with my own eyes;
and I should like to know whether you could do the same, with regard to
that thing being a _hanimal_?"

"I will, Marshall; to-morrow you shall see that with your own eyes."

"To-morrow come never!" [see note 1] muttered the coxswain, replacing
the quid of tobacco in his cheek.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. The phraseology of sailors has been so caricatured of late,
that I am afraid my story will be considered as translated into English.
Seamen, however, must decide which is correct.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

And, lo! while he was expounding, in set terms, the most abstruse of
his pious doctrines, the head of the tub whereon the good man stood
gave way, and the preacher was lost from before the eyes of the whole
congregation.

_Life of the Reverend Mr Smith, SS_.

Seymour, who was always the companion of Captain M---, whenever either
instruction or amusement was to be gained, now quitted the surveying
party to join Macallan, who still continued seated on the rocks,
reflecting upon the remarkable coincidence which the coxswain had
narrated, sufficient in itself to confirm the superstitious ideas of the
sailors for another century. His thoughts naturally reverted to the
other point, in which seafaring men are equally bigoted, the disastrous
consequences of "sailing on a Friday;" the origin of which superstition
can easily be traced to early Catholic