time, a gloomy, preoccupied air, whilst they at the same time—at least so it appeared to me—seemed to be, one and all, in a restless, anxious, watchful frame of mind, as though they were in momentary expectation of something happening. I could not at all understand this state of things, which was something quite new, for, notwithstanding the skipper’s intolerable tyranny, there were a few of the men—and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the ship—who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful demeanour, and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded by the captain’s absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their next neighbour. To-day, however, this sort of thing was conspicuously absent; and I was at first disposed to attribute the unwonted gloom to the men’s horror and regret at the lamentable accident of the previous evening. But that, I felt again, would scarcely account for it; for, however sincere may be Jack’s attachment to his shipmates whilst they are alive and with him, they are no sooner dead and buried than, from his quickly acquired habit of promptly casting behind him all disquieting memories, he forgets all about them and their fate.

At length, as the day wore on and drew to a peaceful close, my misgivings, such as they were—and they were, after all, so slight as scarcely to deserve mention—passed away; and at eight bells I retired to my hammock with a dawning hope that perhaps, after all, the collective remonstrance of the officers was about to bear good fruit.

My mind being thus at rest, I at once sank into a profound sleep, from which I was abruptly startled by a loud noise of some kind, though what it was I could not for the moment make out. Almost immediately afterwards, however, I heard it again—a loud furious combined shout of many voices from the for