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Terror raised his air erect his mouth was wide open he could not speak he tried to analyse it, but a wave dashed in his face his eyes and mouth were filled with salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on the thwarts of the boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom or not: there he lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to his eyes, and his huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limb trembling with blended cold and fright.

In this floating coffin we found the body of another sailor, doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long Spanish knife sticking between his ribs, as if he had died in some mortal struggle, or, what was equally probable, had put an end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the bottom of the boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a beautiful boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few hours dead.

Safety is provided by air-tight tanks which insure buoyancy in case the boat is filled with water. They have also self-righting power in case of being overturned; likewise self-emptying power. Life-boats are usually of the whaleboat type, with copper air-tight tanks along the side beneath the thwarts, and in the ends.

For this reason the position of a statesman in a democracy must always be full of peril; for if he tries merely to please the people he will share their ruin, while if he thwarts them he will be destroyed by them.

At length he unbosomed himself to Colonel Burr, who thus replies to his letter: Rariton, February 15th, 1781. If it will solace your woes to know there is a heart that feels them as its own, that heart is mine. The thwarts of delicacy, which you would exclude from the catalogues of distress, are certainly the keenest humanity can feel. I know their force. I have felt them in all their pungency.

Their few "goods and chattels and household effects" were stowed in and about below the thwarts, with the canvas bags containing the dried birds and Kerguelen cabbage which formed their stock of provisions ranged round the gunwales and crammed in anywhere; while a special place was kept clear and reserved in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of poor Captain Dinks, who was deposited here in his cot.

'Yes; just a boy like that, he answered. 'Ma'colm 'ill steer as straucht's a porpus. When he was relieved, he crept over the thwarts to where I sat. 'Is there any true definition of a straight line, sir? he said. 'I can't take the one in my Euclid. 'So you're not afraid, Malcolm? I returned, heedless of his question, for I wanted to see what he would answer.

Four dead bodies were stretched, in every conceivable attitude of agony, across the thwarts and in the bottom of the boat, which from its shape had evidently belonged to some whaling vessel; while, sitting up in the stern-sheets, close to the helm, which his feeble hands were powerless to grasp, was the living skeleton of another sailor, whose eyes seemed starting out from their deep sockets and whose lips appeared feebly endeavouring to shape the syllables of "wa-ter!"

No; where's that there extra coil of new signal line?" "Starn locker, sir," said Joe. "And an extra line with new grapnel?" "Fore-locker, sir," said Joe. The captain grunted. "Here, get the grapnel out of the jolly-boat and lash it under one of the thwarts. You might lose one again." "There it is, sir," said Joe "lashed just amidships out of the way."

They sat by twos on the narrow thwarts; and, with their faces to the prow, dipped their paddles simultaneously into the stream, with a regularity of movement not to be surpassed by the most experienced boat's crew of Europe.