on the booms, others in the boats; while the main-rigging was crowded
half way up to the cat-harpings. Over-head, the mainsail, illuminated
as high as the yard by the lamps, was bulging forwards under the gale,
which was rising every minute, and straining so violently at the
main-sheet, that there was some doubt whether it might not be necessary
to interrupt the funeral in order to take sail off the ship. The lower
deck ports lay completely under water, and several times the muzzles of
the main-deck guns were plunged into the sea; so that the end of the
grating on which the remains of poor Dolly were laid, once or twice
nearly touched the tops of the waves, as they foamed and hissed past.
The rain fell fast on the bare heads of the crew, dropping also on the
officers, during all the ceremony, from the foot of the mainsail, and
wetting the leaves of the prayer-book. The wind sighed over us amongst
the wet shrouds, with a note so mournful, that there could not have been
a more appropriate dirge.

"The ship--pitching violently--strained and creaked from end to end: so
that, what with the noise of the sea, the rattling of the ropes, and the
whistling of the wind, hardly one word of the service could be
distinguished. The men, however, understood, by a motion of the
captain's hand, when the time came--and the body of our dear little
brother was committed to the deep.

"So violent a squall was sweeping past the ship at this moment, that no
sound was heard of the usual splash, which made the sailors allege that
their young favourite never touched the water at all, but was at once
carried off in the gale to his final resting-place!"

* * * * *