“Gott in himmel!” roared the corporal, turning back, and running out of the cabin, upsetting Smallbones, whom he met in the passage, and trotting, like an elephant, right over him.  Nor was Smallbones the only one who suffered; two marines and three seamen were successively floored by the corporal, who, blinded with fear, never stopped till he ran his head butt against the lining in the forepeak of the cutter, which, with the timbers of the vessel, brought him up, not all standing, in one sense of the word, for in his mad career his head was dashed so violently against them, that the poor corporal fell down, stunned to insensibility.

In the meantime Smallbones had gained his feet, and was rubbing his ribs, to ascertain if they were all whole.  “Well, I’m sure,” said he, “if I ar’n’t flattened for all the world like a pancake, with that ’ere corporal’s weight.  One may as well have a broad-wheel waggon at once go over one’s body; but what could make him come for to go to run away bellowing in that ere manner?  He must have seen the devil; or, perhaps,” thought Smallbones, “that imp of the devil, Snarleyyow.  I’ll go and see what it was, anyhow.”

Smallbones, rubbing his abdomen, where the corporal had trod hardest, walked into the cabin, where he beheld the dog.  He stood with his mouth wide open.

“I defy the devil and all his works,” exclaimed he, at last, “and you be one of his, that’s sartain.  I fear God, and I honour the king, and the parish taught me to read the bible.  There you be resurrectioned up again.  Well, it’s no use, I suppose.  Satan, I defy you, anyhow, but it’s very hard that a good Christian should have to get the breakfast ready, of which you’ll eat one half; I don’t see why I’m to wait upon the devil or his imps.”

Then Smallbones stopped, and thought a little.  “I wonder whether he bee’d dead, as I thought.  Master came on board last night without no one knowing nothing about it, and he might have brought the dog with him, if so be he came to again.  I won’t believe that he’s hal-together not to be made away with, for how come his eye out?  Well, I don’t care, I’m a good Christian, and may I be swamped if I don’t try what he’s made of yet!  First time we cuts up beef, I’ll try and chop your tail, anyhow, that I will, if I am hung for it.”

Smallbones regained his determination.  He set about laying the things for breakfast, and when they were ready he went up to the quarter-deck, reporting the same to Mr Vanslyperken, who had expected to see him frightened out of his wits, and concluding his speech by saying, “If you please, sir, the dog be in the cabin, all right; I said as how I never kilt your dog, nor buried him neither.”

“The dog in the cabin!” exclaimed Mr Vanslyperken, with apparent astonishment.  “Why, how the devil could he have come there?”

“He cummed off, I suppose, sir, same way as you did, without nobody knowing nothing about it,” drawled out Smallbones, who then walked away.