The corpse was soon inclosed in its canvass coffin, with the shot attached to the feet. The captain's clerk commenced the funeral service in a hurried, monotonous tone, and had nearly got to the fatal "we therefore commit his body to the deep," the signal for launching, when the ceremony was interrupted, and the officers and crew horrified by a violent struggle of the supposed defunct, accompanied with angry ejaculations. "What the devil are you about? Let me out, let me out; d--n your eyes, I ain't dead yet;--cut away your thundering hammock, and I'll let you know whether I'm dead or not. This is a pretty how-d'ye-do, to be giving a fellow a sea-toss before his time has come." Half a dozen jack-knives were at work in an instant upon the stitches of the hammock that inclosed the dead-alive--their owners being in their eagerness utterly regardless of the risk of amputation to which their haste subjected Old Cuff's nose; who, having burst his cerements and shaken himself, was conducted below to the doctor. Death, however, had not yet done with him. His next cruise was in the Patriot service. Nothing very particular took place, till being sent with a party "cutting out," as it is technically termed by seamen--that is, capturing and bringing out vessels lying at anchor in an enemy's port, he and several of his party were made prisoners, and, according to the murderous system of warfare going on between the Spanish royal forces and the insurgents, ordered to be shot. No great formality was ever used on these occasions, (the Catholic Church, of course, withheld her consolations from heretics,) and their preparations were nearly completed, when several dragoons dashed into the "plaza," bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste, announcing that the rebels were advancing in great force from the interior. The intelligence proved to be correct, but the executing party did not wait to ascertain that fact; they scampered off instantly, leaving the prisoners bound. The Patriots, of course, set them at liberty, and Old Cuff was thus rescued a second time from an "untimely grave." (By the way, I never saw any person, however old and infirm, who was willing to admit the grave "timely," at any age.)