half-crazed, and were almost as unmanageable as ships that had lost their rudders.  Well, so they had!  It was a melancholy sight to see piles of beautiful tails with little labels tied to them, like the instructions on a physic-bottle; each directed to some favoured relative or sweetheart of the curtailed seamen.  What a strange appearance must Portsmouth, and Falmouth, and Plymouth, and all the other mouths that are filled with sea-stores, have presented, when the precious remembrances were distributed!  I wish some artist would consider it; for I think it’s a shame that there should be no record of such an interesting circumstance.

One night, shortly after this visitation, it blew great guns.  Large black clouds, like chimney-sweepers’ feather-beds, scudded over our heads, and the rain came pouring down like—­like winking.  Tom had been promoted, and was sent up aloft to reef a sail, when one of the horses giving way, down came Tom Johnson, and snap went a leg and an arm.  I was ordered to see him carried below, an office which I readily performed, for I liked the man—­and they don’t allow umbrellas in the navy.

“What’s the matter?” said the surgeon.

“Nothing particular, sir; on’y Tom’s broke his legs and his arms by a fall from the yard,” replied a seaman.

Tom groaned, as though he did consider it something very particular.

He was soon stripped and the shattered bones set, which was no easy matter, the ship pitching and tossing about as she did.  I sat down beside his berth, holding on as well as I could.  The wind howled through the rigging, making the vessel seem like an infernal Eolian harp; the thunder rumbled like an indisposed giant, and to make things more agreeable, a gun broke from its lashings, and had it all its own way for about a quarter of an hour.  Tom groaned most pitiably.  I looked at him, and if I were to live for a thousand years, I shall never forget the expression of his face.  His lips were blue, and—­no matter, I’m not clever at portrait painting:  but imagine an old-fashioned Saracen’s Head—­not the fine handsome fellow they have stuck on Snow Hill, but one of the griffins of 1809—­and you have Tom’s phiz, only it wants touching with all the colours of a painter’s palette.  I was quite frightened, and could only stammer out, “Why T-o-o-m!”

“It’s all up, sir,” says he; “I must go; I feel it.”

“Don’t be foolish,” I replied; “Don’t die till I call the surgeon.”  It was a stupid speech, I acknowledge, but I could not help it at the time.

“No, no; don’t call the surgeon, Mr. Box; he’s done all he can, sir.  But it’s here—­it’s here!” and then he made an effort to thump his heart, or the back of his head, I couldn’t make out which.

I trembled like a jelly.  I had once seen a melodrama, and I recollected that the villain of the piece had used the same action, the same words.

“Mr. Box,” groaned Tom, “I’ve a-a-secret as makes me very uneasy, sir,”