“I looked up, and half thought I could see the brave lad’s limbs tremble and his cheeks all red with excitement.
“Each second I thought would be his last.
“I could not bear to look at him, and yet could not withdraw my gaze.
“I myself had the sensation of one about to fall from a great height.
“Making a strong effort to recover myself, like a dreamer who fancies he is shoved from a precipice, I staggered up against the bulwarks.
“When my eyes turned from the dizzy height to which they had been riveted, sense and consciousness came back.
“I looked around: the deck was crowded with every man and boy in the ship.
“All the officers had now heard of the young midshipman, and hurried from their berths below to witness the appalling sight.
“Every one, as he looked up and beheld the perilous, hopeless condition of the gallant midshipman and child, turned pale.
“Once a lieutenant seized a trumpet, as if to hail the middy up in the clouds, but, he had scarcely raised it to his lips, when his arm dropped again, and sank beside him, as if from sad consciousness of the perfect uselessness of what he had been going to say.