The men trembled at the supernatural aspect of the burning body, but reckless Jackson, with a fierce jeer, bade them hurl it overboard, which was done. Jackson knew not how soon the waves were to close over his own corpse. Off Cape Cod, when the smell of land was strong in the nostrils of the weary emigrants, orders were given, one dark night, in a stiff breeze, to reef topsails; and Jackson, who had been deadly ill and off duty most part of the voyage, came upon deck, to the surprise of many, to do his duty with the rest, by way of reminder, perhaps, to the captain, that he was alive and expected his wages. Having pointed pretty freely to Mr Melville's defects, it is fair to give an example of his happier manner. "At no time could Jackson better signalise his disposition to work, than upon an occasion like the present; which generally attracts every soul on deck, from the captain to the child in the steerage. "His aspect was damp and deathlike; the blue hollows of his eyes were like vaults full of snakes, [another of Mr Melville's outrageous similes]; and, issuing so unexpectedly from his dark tomb in the forecastle, he looked like a man raised from the dead. "Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson was tottering up the rigging; thus getting the start of them, and securing his place at the extreme weather end of the topsail-yard--which is accounted the post of honour. For it was one of the characteristics of this man, that, though when on duty he would shy away from mere dull work in a calm, yet in tempest time he always claimed the van, and would yield it to none; and this, perhaps, was one cause of his unbounded dominion over the men. "Soon we were all strung along the main-topsail yard; the ship rearing and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man griping his reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over towards Jackson, whose business it was to confine the reef corner to the yard. "His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope like a bridle. At all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with sailors, whose spirits seem then to partake of the commotion of the elements, as they hang in the gale, between heaven and earth--and then it is, too, that they are the most profane. "'Haul out to windward!' coughed Jackson with a blasphemous cry, and he threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle in his hand. But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth when his hands dropped to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered with a torrent of blood from his lungs. "As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell headlong from the yard, and, with a long seethe, plunged like a diver into the sea.