hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished
beneath the dark ocean--I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been
drawn down through a trap--door. The topsails next disappeared, the
fore--topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the
main--topgallant--mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind,
flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with--life, like a stream of white
fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn
down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever.
The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.

The captain now stood up in his boat--"Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is
my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst
the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men,
this hint may not he necessary, still it is right you should know it."

When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the
whole fleet. "There she goes, the dear old beauty," said one of her crew.
"There goes the blessed old black b--h," quoth another. "Ah, many a merry
night have we had in the clever little craft," quoth a third; and there was
really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco juice. But
the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glasslike surface of the sea
where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, with the prospect of
a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes for a time, seemed to be
uppermost amongst the men. The officers, I saw and knew, felt very
differently.

"My eye!" sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward
with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after
having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, "my eye, what a pity--oh,
what a pity!"