Chapter 14 - Page 2

stomach!" cried a Main-top-man.

"It's worse than the cholera!" cried a man of the After-guard.

"I'd sooner the water-casks would give out!" said a Captain of the Hold.

"Are we ganders and geese, that we can live without grog?" asked a
Corporal of Marines.

"Ay, we must now drink with the ducks!" cried a Quarter-master.

"Not a tot left?" groaned a Waister.

"Not a toothful!" sighed a Holder, from the bottom of his boots.

Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum was no longer heard
rolling the men to the tub, and deep gloom and dejection fell like a
cloud. The ship was like a great city, when some terrible calamity has
overtaken it. The men stood apart, in groups, discussing their woes,
and mutually condoling. No longer, of still moonlight nights, was the
song heard from the giddy tops; and few and far between were the stories
that were told. It was during this interval, so dismal to many, that to
the amazement of all hands, ten men were reported by the master-at-arms
to be intoxicated. They were brought up to the mast, and at their
appearance the doubts of the most skeptical were dissipated; but whence
they had obtained their liquor no one could tell. It was observed,
however at the time, that the tarry knaves all smelled of lavender,
like so many dandies.

After their examination they were ordered into the "brig," a
jail-house between two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners are
kept. Here they laid for some time, stretched out stark and
stiff, with their arms folded over their breasts, like so many
effigies of the Black Prince on his monument in Canterbury Cathedral.

Their first slumbers over, the marine sentry who stood guard over
them had as much as he could do to keep off the crowd, who were
all eagerness to find out how, in such a time of want, the
prisoners had managed to drink themselves into oblivion. In due
time they were liberated, and the secret simultaneously leaked out.

It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, who had
suffered severely from the common deprivation, had all at once
been struck by a brilliant idea. It had come to his knowledge
that the purser's steward was supplied with a large quantity of
_Eau-de-Cologne_, clandestinely brought out in the ship, for the
purpose of selling it on his own account, to the people of the
coast; but the supply proving larger than the demand, and having
no customers on board the frigate but Lieutenant Selvagee, he was
now carrying home more than a third of his original stock. To
make a short story of it, this functionary, being called upon in
secret, was readily prevailed upon to part with a dozen bottles,
with