cigar out of his mouth for one moment. 'Ready about,' says he. 'Hands
'bout ship. Helm's a-lee. Raise tacks and sheets.' Round she was coming
like a top. Pilot smoking. Just as he was going to haul the mainsel
Somebody tripped against him, and shoved the hot cigar in his eye. He
sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. Ship in irons, tide
running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for
anchoring, bump!--there she was hard and fast. A stiff breeze got up at
sunrise, and she broke up. Next day I was sipping my grog and reading the
_Bengal Courier,_ and it told the disastrous wreck of the brig
_Antelope,_ wrecked in charge of a pilot; 'but no lives lost, and the
owners fully insured.' Then there was the bark _Sally._ Why, you saw her
yourself distressed on a lee shore."

"Yes," said Wylie. "I was in that tub, the _Grampus,_ and we contrived to
claw off the Scillies; yet you, in your smart _Sally,_ got ashore. What
luck!"

"Luck be blowed!" cried Hudson, angrily. "Somebody got into the chains to
sound, and cut the weather halyards. Next tack the masts went over the
side; and I had done my duty."

"Lives were lost that time, eh?" said Wylie, gravely.

"What is that to you?" replied Hudson, with the sudden ire of a drunken
man. "Mind your own business. Pass me the bottle."


"Yes, lives was lost; and always will be lost in sea-going ships, where
the skipper does his duty. There was a sight more lost at Trafalgar,
owing to every man doing his duty. Lives lost, ye lubber? And why not