"How?" said I, much interested—"How? Tell me what forebodings you have had—do now?"
To make what passed after this intelligible, it is proper to remark, that this poor fellow, notwithstanding his peculiarities, was the most sober and hard-working man in the frigate—a favourite with all hands, men and officers. It appeared that, for several days before the setting out of the expedition, he had been suffering from dysentery,—indeed, he had been so very ill, that this very morning the surgeon had given him eighty drops of laudanum;—notwithstanding, he would not on any account be left behind, but insisted on going in the boats. It was soon evident, however, that even during the attack he was unnaturally elevated by the effects of the medicine; for although a known and tried hand, and acknowledged to be one of the bravest men in the ship, yet his extraordinary conduct had startled many of us, myself amongst others. When the long shed was set fire to, for instance, I thought he was drunk, for he kept swaggering about, with half shut eyes, and speaking to himself, in a manner altogether unaccountable, knowing as I did the character of the man; but in the tumult I had after this lost sight of him.
"What makes you so down-hearted, my man?"
I now saw that the poor fellow was evidently still under the influence of laudanum, although the exhilarating effects had evaporated. It afterwards came to my knowledge, that the surgeon, seeing his weak state when the boats got on board again, had given him. another dose, but this had not yet had time to operate.
"What makes you so down-hearted?" I repeated.
"Down-hearted!" he rejoined, his eyes twinkling brightly, as the fresh doze began to operate; "down-hearted, bless your honour! I was rather so, certainly, some time ago, but now I begin to feel myself growing the happiest fellow in the whole ship,—yes, the happiest—happy—hap"——and he fell over into a short troubled snooze.
Some time elapsed, and I had removed to another part of the vessel, when I again heard his voice.
"Stand clear until I get out—don't you hear them call all hands?—so,"—and before I could prevent him he had floundered on deck.
We lifted him into his hammock again. He still continued to breathe very hard. At length he looked me right in the face,—
"I say, master-at-arms—Lord! what a comical dream I have had! Why, we were all ashore cutting out,—what do you think?—a little heathen god, defended by bull-dogs!—and a devil of a good fight he made of it, ha, ha, ha!—We were too many for him though; and when we had set fire to his house, and split the skulls of a thousand of his people or so, the little grinning, monkeyfied son-of-a-gun, just as I was taking aim at him, jumped down from his perch, and flew like a cannon-shot right against me, giving me such a settler, ha, ha, ha!—Zounds! only fancy Jack Lennox mentioned in the return, as 'Killed by a heathen god! the bloody little image pitching itself right into his stomach!'—ha, ha, ha!"