the day, had placed it beneath him, immediately on his sinking to sleep, and then quietly undoing the lashings at the foot of his hammock, had gently lowered him into it. In the midst of his terror, it was impossible for Frank to comprehend immediately the nature of the novel situation in which he found himself; he called aloud for assistance, but no one answered him : it was pitchy dark around him, and the only sound he could hear was the suppressed and bursting laugh of D'Aubrey in an adjoining hammock. In a few minutes, however, he recovered his recollection, scrambled out of the barrel, and groped about to find his hammock. He got it, at length, but it was totally out of his power to fasten up the end which had dropped; he made some ineffectual efforts, asked some one who slept next him to assist him, and only receiving a curse in return, he picked his blanket, drew off his wet night-clothes, and wrapping himself up, lay down upon the up deck to sleep. In spite of all his disturbance and apprehension, he soon sunk again into forgetfulness, and dozed till near daylight. It was still dark when the bell struck the hour of four, and the watch was changed; the noise awoke him, and he heard some one turn out beside him; he could not tell who it was, but he perceived they were dressing, and he conjectured it was some one going on deck to relieve the watch. He was just dropping once again to sleep, when he was startled by a plunge, and a dreadful sound beside him; the barrel in which he had been drenched an hour before rolled over, and the lantern of the quarter-master coming down, showed D'Aubrey, who had played poor Frank so cruel a trick, sprawling on the ground, and completely ducked from head to heels. He was caught in his own trap; he was too sleepy when he rose to go upon deck to be able to recollect that the barrel was still there, and in the dark he had stumbled head foremost into it. One of the men now replaced Frank's hammock, and helped him into it; no farther accident occurred, and he slept soundly till he was called to turn out at eight o'clock the following morning. CHAPTER IX. SHIP SAILS.-A NEW COMPANION.-THE NIGHT-WATCH.-SEA SICKNESS. How gloriously her gallant course she goes, CORSAIR. DURING breakfast on this his second day of probation, Frank found his companions more cordial; the laugh being turned loudly against D'Aubrey for having been so foolish as to allow himself to be ducked in the same tub he had placed for the raw landsman; besides this, another individual had that morning been added to the mess, a boy about Frank's age, who had come on board from Portsmouth, and was become, of course, the butt of the messroom wit, in right of his being the junior member. This in some degree took the weight of annoyance from Frank, who now got intimate and on good terms with one or two of those who had the day before been his most tormenting assailants; and having been taught by experience, he was enabled to ward off some shafts of ridicule from young Godfrey, and put him on his guard against the tricks they were likely to play upon him. Breakfast was nearly concluded, when a shrill and prolonged whistle was heard upon deck, and one of the midshipmen exclaimed that the boatswain was piping the arrival of the Captain. Frank has * * The boatswain, by peculiar and well-known modulations of his whistle, can indicate and order all the motions of the vessel; the officer of the watch issues his commands, the boatswain (or his mate) takes them up, and by the different sounds of his shrill pipe conveys them to the most distant part of the vessel. |