"Though stationed below--safe, except from the danger of smothering in horrid smoke--I soon had evidence enough we were getting badly hammered. I wasn't sorry when "Cease firing" sounded, and I could crawl up and breathe.
"But how about simple Mair? Why, this only--he had done his duty nobly, coolly, manfully; he had gained admiration from his fire-eating captain, and got specially mentioned in a despatch. Mair looked red and excited all the afternoon, but the flute never sounded half so cheerily before as it did that same evening after dinner.
"Talking about simplicity brings poor Nat Wildman of ours before my mind's eye.
"There wasn't a pluckier sailor in the service than Nat, nor a greater favourite with his mess-mates, nor a simpler-souled or kindlier-hearted. He was very tall and powerful--quite an athlete in fact. Once when a company or two of marines and blue-jackets were sent to enact punishment of some native tribes on the West African coast, for the murder of a white merchant, and for having fired on Her Majesty's boats, they encountered a strongly-palisaded village. Our fellows had no ladders nor axes, and the dark-skins were firing through. The village must be carried, and reduced to terms--and ashes; so the men hoisted each other over. Nat worked hard at this pitch-and-toss warfare; indeed, he could have thrown the whole ship's company over. But, lo! he found himself the last man--left out in the cold--for there was no one to help him across. When the row was over, Nat was found--simple fellow that he was--sitting on the ground crying with vexation, or, as one of his mess-mates phrased it, 'blubbering like a big baby'.
"I often think, boys, that it must be very hard to have to die at sea, especially if homeward bound; all the bustle and stir of ship's work going on around you; the songs of the men, the joking and laughing, and the din--for silence can seldom be long maintained.
"Jack Wright of ours--captain of the main-top--might have been called a tar of the real Tom Bowling type. He, too, like Nat Wildman, whom I mentioned above, was a very great favourite with his mess-mates. He was always kind and merry, but ever good, obedient, and brave. We were coming home in the old T----. Dirty weather began shortly after we left Madeira, and while assisting in taking in sail one forenoon, poor Jack fell from aloft. His injuries were of so serious a nature that his life was despaired of from the first. He lost much blood, and never rallied.
"This sailor had a young wife, who was to have met him at Plymouth. She was in his thoughts in his last hours. I was assisting the doctor just at that time of my life, a kind of loblolly-boy, and I heard the man say, as he looked wistfully in the surgeon's face: 'It seems a kind o' hard, doctor, but I've always done my duty--I've always obeyed orders without asking questions. I'm ready when the Great Captain calls, though--yes, it do seem a kind o' hard.'
"He appeared to doze off, and I sat still for an hour. It was well on in the middle watch, and the ship was under easy sail; there was now and then a word of command, but no trampling overhead, for even the officers liked and respected Jack. I sat still for an hour, then took his wrist in my hand. There was no pulse there. He was gone.
"I covered him up and went on deck, for something was rising and choking me. It was a heavenly night--bright stars shining, and a round silvery moon, with the waves all sparkling to leeward of us.
"'It does seem hard,' I couldn't help muttering.