"Yes, they'se no judgment in ships, in general. Well, them French twelves are spiteful guns; and a little afore they fired, it seemed to me I heard something give Jack a rap on the check, that sounded as if a fellow's ear was boxed with a clap of thunder. I looked up, and there was Jack streaming out like the fly of the ensign, head foremost, with the body towing after it by strings in the neck."
"I thought when a fellow's head was shot off," put in another quarter-master named Ben Barrel, "that the body was left in the ship while only the truck went!"
"That comes of not seeing them things, Ben," rejoined the eye-witness. "A fellow's head is staid in its berth just like a ship's mast. There's for'ard and back-stays, and shrouds, all's one as aboard here; the only difference is that the lanyards are a little looser, so as to give a man more play for his head, than it might be safe to give to a mast. When a fellow makes a bow, why he only comes up a little aft, and bowses on the fore-stay, and now and then you falls in with a chap that is stayed altogether too far for'ard, or who's got a list perhaps from having the shrouds set up too taut to port or to starboard."
"That sounds reasonable," put in the quarter-gunner, gravely; "I've seen such droggers myself."
"If you'd been on the poop an hour or too ago, you'd ha' seen more on it! Now, there's all our marines, their back-stays have had a fresh pull since they were launched, and, as for their captain, I'll warrant you, he had a luff upon luff!"
"I've heard the carpenter overhauling them matters," remarked Sam Wad, another quarter-gunner, "and he chalked it all out by the square and compass. It seems reasonable, too."
"If you'd seen Jack's head dragging his body overboard, just like the Frenchman dragging his wreck under his lee, you'd ha' thought it reasonable. What's a fellow's shoulders for, but to give a spread to his shrouds, which lead down the neck and are set up under the arms somewhere. They says a great deal about the heart, and I reckons it's likely every thing is key'd there."
"Harkee, Ned," observed a quarter-master, who knew little more than the mess generally, "if what you say is true, why don't these shrouds lead straight from the head to the shoulders, instead of being all tucked up under a skin in the neck? Answer me that, now."
"Who the devil ever saw a ship's shrouds that wasn't cat-harpened in!" exclaimed Ned, with some heat. "A pretty hand a wife would make of it, in pulling her arms around a fellow's neck if the rigging spread in the way you mean! Them things is all settled according to reason when a chap's keel's laid."
This last argument seemed to dispose of the matter, the discourse gradually turning on, and confining itself to the merits of the deceased.