"Ship ahoy! All aboard! Let your one shot come," shouts the sailor to the pirate craft. Now, one shot will not shiver a brig's timbers much, but suppose that this one ball were to strike the captain through the heart, and the helmsman through the skull, and that there are none to fill their posts, it would be a terrible shot indeed. Moderate drinking is a charmed ball from a pirate craft. It does not lodge in the beams' ends. It cuts no masts. It shivers no plank between wind and water. It strikes no sailor or under-officer, but with magic course it seeks the heart of the captain and the arms of the helmsman, and it always hits. Their leaders dead, and none to take their place, the crew are powerless against the enemy. Thunders another broadside from pirate alcohol, and what is the effect? Every ball is charmed; not one of the crew is killed, but every one becomes mad and raises mutiny. Commanders dead, they are free. Thunders another broadside from the pirate, and the charmed balls complete their work. The mutinous crew rage with insanity. Captain Conscience and Steersman Reason are picked up, and, lest their corpses should offend the crazy sailors, pitched overboard. Then ranges Jack Lust from one end of the ship to the other. That brave tar, Midshipman Courage, who, in his right mind, was the bravest defender of the ship, now wheels the cannon against his own friends and rakes the deck with red-hot grape until every mast totters with shot-holes. The careful stewards, seamen Friendship and Parental Love, whose exertions have always heretofore provided the crew seasonably with food and drink, now refuse to cook, furnish no meals, unhead the water-casks, waste the provisions, and break the ship's crockery. The vessel has wheeled into the trough of the sea; a black shadow approaches swiftly over the waters, and the compass and helm are deserted. That speculating mate, Love of Money, who, if sober, would see the danger, and order every rag down from jib to mainsail, and make the ship scud under bare poles before the black squall, now, on the contrary, orders up every sail and spreads every thread of canvas. The rising storm whistles in the rigging, but he does not hear it. That black shadow on the water is swiftly nearing. He does not see it. In the trough of the sea the ship rocks like a cockle shell. He does not feel it. Yonder, before the dense rush of the coming blow of air rises a huge wave, foaming, and gnawing, and groaning on high. He does not hear it. With a shock like the opening of an earthquake it strikes the broadside; with a roar it washes over the deck; three snaps like cannon, and the heavily-rigged masts are gone; a lurch and sucking in of waves, and the hold is full of water, and the sinking ship just survives the first heavy sea. Then comes out Mirthfulness, and sits astride the broken bowsprit, and ogles a dancing tune. The crew dance! It were possible, even yet, to so man the pumps