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"It is past!" said the 'Skimmer of the Seas, raising himself from the attitude of great muscular exertion, which he had assumed in order to support the mess-chest, and walking out along the single mast, towards the spot whence the four seamen of Ludlow had just been swept.
You see I had been married only six months; the women at home, and in Germany also, had always shown great deference to their husbands' wishes. But at that moment I almost wished Major Worth and Jack and Bowen and the mess-chest at the bottom of the Rio Colorado. However, I nerved myself for the effort, and when Bowen had his camp-fire made, he came and called me.
Little was said, and for hours scarce a limb was moved, in the group that clustered around the mess-chest. As the signs of day appeared, however, every faculty was keenly awake, to catch the first signs of what they had to hope, or the first certainty of what they had to fear.
"Come, now, my little marlinspike," he continued, turning to Archie, "follow in my wake, and I'll show you where our mess-chest is;" and the kind-hearted sailor led the way to the berth-deck, and showed Archie the mess-chest, which had "No. 25" painted on it.
There are no gales of wind, nor short allowances, nor reefing topsails, nor shipwrecks, among soldiers; and, at the same time, there is just as much, or even more, grog-drinking, jollifying, care-killing fun around a canteen and an open knapsack, than there is on the end of a mess-chest, with a full can and a Saturday- night's breeze.
The cousins walked aft to their mess-chest, and found the berth-deck filled with men, who were sitting around the chests, brandishing their sheath-knives over plates fall of salt beef and "hard-tack."
"The great mess-chest had been lifted out of the wagon; and the lid of this, with a cloth spread over it, served us for a table. For seats we had rolled several large stones around the chest; and upon these we sat drinking the delicious coffee, and eating the savoury steaks of venison.
The man they have marked is perhaps strolling along the benighted berth-deck to his mess-chest; when of a sudden, the foot-pads dash out from their hiding-place, throw him down, and while two or three gag him, and hold him fast, another cuts the bag from his neck, and makes away with it, followed by his comrades. This was more than once done in the Neversink.
"Stand firm to the mess-chest!" half-whispered the Skimmer, motioning to his companions to place themselves in attitudes to support the weaker of their party, while, with sedulous care, he braced his own athletic person in a manner to throw all of its weight and strength against the seat. "Stand firm, and be ready!" Ludlow complied, though his eye scarce changed its direction.
A school of mullet, disturbed by a shark, or some other unscrupulous pursuer, sprang suddenly out of the water just before us, and fell into it again like the splashing of a sudden shower. I lay upon the roof of the cabin of a little yacht. Euphemia stood below, her feet upon the mess-chest, and her elbows resting on the edge of the cabin roof.
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