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The bubbles had hardly burst, when all hands were piped down by the Boatswain, and the old jests were heard again, as if Shenly himself were there to hear. This man-of-war life has not left me unhardened. I cannot stop to weep over Shenly now; that would be false to the life I depict; wearing no mourning weeds, I resume the task of portraying our man-of-war world.
An old gunner's mate of the mess Priming, the man with the hare-lip, who, true to his tribe, was charged to the muzzle with bile, and, moreover, rammed home on top of it a wad of sailor superstition this gunner's mate indulged in some gloomy and savage remarks strangely tinged with genuine feeling and grief at the announcement of the sick-ness of Shenly, coming as it did not long after the almost fatal accident befalling poor Baldy, captain of the mizzen-top, another mess-mate of ours, and the dreadful fate of the amputated fore-top-man whom we buried in Rio, also our mess-mate.
It was on the first day of the long, hot calm which we had on the Equator, that a mess-mate of mine, by the name of Shenly, who had been for some weeks complaining, at length went on the sick-list.
All I could say in private to Priming had no effect; though I often took him aside, to convince him of the philosophical impossibility of my having been accessary to the misfortunes of Baldy, the buried sailor in Rio, and Shenly. But Priming knew better; nothing could move him; and he ever afterward eyed me as virtuous citizens do some notorious underhand villain going unhung of justice.
They belonged to that small class of aged seamen who, for their previous long and faithful services, are retained in the Navy more as pensioners upon its merited bounty than anything else. They are set to light and easy duties. "Ar'n't this the fore-top-man, Shenly?" asked the foremost, looking full at the frozen face before him.
In the Purser's opinion, this settled the question; and it is to be hoped that the widow duly received her husband's death-earned wages. Shenly was dead and gone; and what was Shenly's epitaph? opposite his name in the Purser's books, in "Black's best Writing Fluid" funereal name and funereal hue meaning "Discharged, Dead."
I had not been seated on my shot-box three minutes, when the messenger-boy passed me on his way forward; presently the slow, regular stroke of the ship's great bell was heard, proclaiming through the calm the expiration of the watch; it was four o'clock in the morning. Poor Shenly! thought I, that sounds like your knell! and here you lie becalmed, in the last calm of all!
"Damn you! off those booms!" roared a boatswain's mate to a crowd of top-men, who had elevated themselves to gain a better view of the scene. "We commit this body to the deep!" At the word, Shenly's mess-mates tilted the board, and the dead sailor sank in the sea. "Look aloft," whispered Jack Chase. "See that bird! it is the spirit of Shenly."
We were cross-legged seated at dinner, between the guns, when the sad news concerning Shenly was first communicated. "I know'd it, I know'd it," said Priming, through his nose. "Blast ye, I told ye so; poor fellow! But dam'me, I know'd it. This comes of having thirteen in the mess. I hope he arn't dangerous, men? Poor Shenly!
If he dies before your watch is out, call the Surgeon's steward; he sleeps in that hammock," pointing it out. "Good-bye, good-bye, mess-mate," he then whispered, stooping over the sick man; and so saying, he left the place. Shenly was lying on his back. His eyes were closed, forming two dark-blue pits in his face; his breath was coming and going with a slow, long-drawn, mechanical precision.
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