Chapter 79 - Page 2

more would look out of those
eyes.

So warm had it been during the day, that the Surgeon himself, when
visiting the sick-bay, had entered it in his shirt-sleeves; and so warm
was now the night that even in the lofty top I had worn but a loose
linen frock and trowsers. But in this subterranean sick-bay, buried in
the very bowels of the ship, and at sea cut off from all ventilation,
the heat of the night calm was intense. The sweat dripped from me as
if I had just emerged from a bath; and stripping myself naked to the
waist, I sat by the side of the cot, and with a bit of crumpled
paper--put into my hand by the sailor I had relieved--kept fanning the
motionless white face before me.

I could not help thinking, as I gazed, whether this man's fate
had not been accelerated by his confinement in this heated
furnace below; and whether many a sick man round me might not
soon improve, if but permitted to swing his hammock in the airy
vacancies of the half-deck above, open to the port-holes, but
reserved for the promenade of the officers.

At last the heavy breathing grew more and more irregular, and
gradually dying away, left forever the unstirring form of Shenly.

Calling the Surgeon's steward, he at once told me to rouse the
master-at-arms, and four or five of my mess-mates. The master-at-arms
approached, and immediately demanded the dead man's bag, which was
accordingly dragged into the bay. Having been laid on the floor, and
washed with a bucket of water which I drew from the ocean, the body was
then dressed in a white frock, trowsers, and neckerchief, taken out of
the bag. While this was going on, the master-at-arms--standing over the
operation with his rattan, and directing myself and mess-mates--indulged
in much discursive levity, intended to manifest his fearlessness of death.

Pierre, who had been a "_chummy_" of Shenly's, spent much time in
tying the neckerchief in an elaborate bow, and affectionately
adjusting the white frock and trowsers; but the master-at-arms
put an end to this by ordering us to carry the body up to the
gun-deck. It was placed on the death-board (used for that
purpose), and we proceeded with it toward the main hatchway,
awkwardly crawling under the tiers of hammocks, where the entire
watch-below was sleeping. As, unavoidably, we rocked their
pallets, the man-of-war's-men would cry out against us; through
the mutterings of curses, the corpse reached the hatchway. Here
the board slipped, and some time was spent in readjusting the
body. At length we deposited it on the gun-deck, between two
guns, and a union-jack being thrown over it for a pall, I was
left again to watch by its side.

I had not been seated on my shot-box three minutes, when