"you know a ship can't fight all day
long without an accident or two." He added
with nautical simplicity, and love of cleanliness,
"however the deck will be cleaned, and
holy-stoned, to-morrow, long before you turn
out."

Mrs. Beresford was too much overcome to
explain how much deeper her emotion was than
a dislike to stained floors. She turned faint, and
on getting the better of that, went down to her
cabin crying. Thence issued a royal order that
the wounded were to have wine and every luxury
they could fancy, without limit or stint; at her
expense.

The next day a deep gloom reigned in the ship;
the crew were ranged in their Sunday clothes,
and bare-headed: a grating was rigged; Sharpe
read the burial service; and the dead, each man
sewed up in his hammock with a 32 Ib. shot,
glided off the grating into the sea with a sullen
plunge; while their shipmates cried so, that the
tears dripped on the deck.

With these regrets for the slain, too violent to
last, were mingled a gloomy fear that Death had
a heavier blow in store. The surgeon's report
of Captain Dodd was most alarming; he had
become delirious about midnight; and so
continued.

Sharpe commanded the ship; and the rough
sailors stepped like cats over that part of the
deck, beneath which their unconscious captain
lay. If two men met on the quarter deck, a look
of anxious, but not hopeful, inquiry, was sure to
pass between them.

Among the constant inquirers was Ramgolam.
The grave Hindoo often waylaid the surgeon at
the captain's door, to get the first intelligence.
This marked sympathy with a hero in extremity
was hardly expected from a sage, who at the first
note of war's trumpet had vanished in a meal-
bag. However, it went down to his credit. One
person, however, took a dark view of this
innocent circumstance. But then that hostile critic
was Vespasian, a rival in matters of tint. He
exploded in one of those droll rages darkies seem
liable to: "Massa cunnel," said he, "what for
dat yar niggar always prowling about the capn's
door? What for he ask so many stupid
questions? Dat ole fox arter no good; him heart so
black as um skin: dam old niggar!"

Fullalove suggested slyly that a person with a
dark skin might have a grateful heart: and the
colonel, who dealt little in inuendo, said, "Come,
don't you be so hard on jet; you ebony!"

"Bery well, gemmen," replied Vespasian,
ceremoniously, and with seeming acquiescence.
Then, with sudden ire, "Because Goramighty
make you white, you tink you bery wise without
any more trouble. Dat ar niggar am an
abommable egotisk."

"Pray what does that mean?" inquired
Kenealy, innocently.

"What him mean? what him mean? Yah!
yah!"

"Yes. What does it mean?"

"What him mean? Yah! What, dinn't you
hear Missy Besford miscal him an abommable
egotisk?"

"Yes," said Fullalove, winking to Kenealy;
"but we don't know what it means. Do you,
sir?"

"Iss, sar. Dat ar expression he signify a
darned old cuss dat says to dis child, 'My lord
Vespasium, take benevolence on your insidious
slave, and invest me in a bread-bag,' instead of
fighting for de ladies like a freenindependum
citizen. Now you two go fast asleep; dis child
he shut one eye and open de oder bery wide open
on dat ar niggar." And with this mysterious
threat he stalked away.

His contempt for a black skin, his ebullitions
of unexpected ire, his turgid pomposity, and love
of long terms, may make the reader smile; but
they could hardly amuse his friends just then:
everything that touched upon Dodd was too
serious now. The surgeon sat up with him
nearly all night: in the daytime these two friends
sat for hours in his cabin, watching sadly, and
silently moistening his burning brow and his
parched lips.

At length, one afternoon, there came a crisis,
which took an unfavourable turn. Then the
surgeon, speaking confidentially to these two
staunch friends, inquired if they had asked
themselves what should be done with the body?
"Why I ask," said he, "we are in a very hot
latitude; and, if you wish to convey it to
Barkington, the measures ought to be taken
in time: in fact, within an hour or two after
death."

The poor friends were shocked and sickened
by this horrible piece of foresight. But
Colonel Kenealy said with tears in his eyes that
his old friend should never be buried like a
kitten.

"Then you had better ask Sharpe to give me
an order for a barrel of spirits," said the
surgeon.

"Yes, yes, for two if you like. O don't die,
Dodd, my poor old fellow. How shall I ever
face his wife—I remember her, the loveliest girl
you ever saw—with such a tale as this? She
will think it a cruel thing I should come out of
it without a scratch, and a ten times better man
to be dead: and so it is; it is cruel, it is unjust,
it is monstrous; him to be lying there, and we
muffs to be sitting croaking over him and
watching for his last breath like three cursed
old ravens." And the stout colonel groaned
aloud.

When the surgeon left them, they fell naturally
upon another topic: the pledge they had given
Dodd about the £14,000. They ascertained it was
upon him: next his skin: but it seemed as
unnecessary as it was repugnant, to remove it from
his living person. They agreed, however, that
instantly on his decease they would take
possession of it, note the particulars, seal it up,
and carry it to Mrs. Dodd, with such
comfort as they could hope to give her by relating