inclined to blame Chubb for incurring this sacrifice of life for what
appeared to me an inadequate object. He laughed it away.

"They take the risk," said he, "they know it, and they are well paid
for it. We've saved ship and cargo; that's all old H---- will think
about, and all we need care for."

It was far, however, from being all I cared for as I looked upon the
mangled corpses lately filled with life and vigour. I had embarked on
the enterprise in a spirit of levity and carelessness, reflecting
little on what it might entail, and there was something shocking in
thus suddenly coming face to face with the dread reality of war. But
whatever may have been the source of the feeling, it soon passed away,
and when the dead had been sewed up in their hammocks and laid to
their last rest in the deep--a ceremony we performed the day after our
escape--Richard was himself again, and the old careless buoyancy
swelled up once more.

Prayer-books had been omitted in our outfit, and we were at a loss for
the burial service. However, we laid our heads, or rather our memories
together, and most of us being able to recollect a scrap of it here
and there, we contrived to patch it up sufficiently to give our
unfortunate shipmates Christian burial. I should mention that another
of the wounded men died after our arrival at Tientsin, and was
interred in the English cemetery. He was the man who was first hit;
his name was Massinger, and he claimed to be a descendant of the
dramatist. He was known on board chiefly as "Hair-oil," from his
addiction to plastering his bushy black hair with some shiny and
odorous compound of that nature. Both his legs were broken by the shot
that struck him.