"Then take the bottle, it is well stitched of leather, And better than doublet keeps out the wind and weather: Let the bottom look up to the broad arch of blue, And then catch the drippings, as good fellows do. With heave and ho, and trombelow, 'Tis sinful to waste good liquor, you know. "The soldier, he carries his knapsack and gun. And swears at the weight as he tramps through the sun But, devil a loon, did I ever hear tell, Who swore at the weight of the Jolly Bottle. So heave and ho, and trombelow, The Jolly Bottle is a feather, I trow." Here the song was interrupted by the return of the two files who had been sent to bring in the bodies of the dead. They had found the missing horse, and now led him into the circle laden with the corpses of Bell and Waters. The troopers halted immediately behind the ring of the revellers, and in such a position as to front Peppercorn and the captain, who were thus afforded a full view of the bodies by the blaze of the fire. "Easy," almost whispered Habershaw, now half-intoxicated, to the two troopers, as he lifted his hands and motioned to them to halt; "put them down gently on the ground. Go on, Peppercorn; let the dead help themselves: finish the song! That chorus again, my boys!" And here the last chorus was repeated in the highest key of merriment. Peppercorn cast an eye at the bodies which, during the interval, had been thrown on the earth, and while the men who had just returned were helping themselves to the drink, he proceeded, in an unaltered voice, with the song. "When drinkers are dry, and liquor is low, A fray that takes off a good fellow or so, Why, what does it do, but help us to bear The loss of a comrade, in drinking his share? Then heave and ho, and trombelow, A fray and a feast are brothers, you know. "The philosophers say it's a well-settled fact, That a vessel will leak whose bottom is cracked; And a belly that's drilled with a bullet, I think, Is a very bad belly to stow away drink. So heave and ho, and trombelow, The dead will be dry to-night, I trow." "There they are, captain," said one of the returning troopers, after the song, to which he and his companions had stood listening with delighted countenances, was brought to an end, "there they are. We found Dick Waters lying in the road, and when we first came to him he gave a sort of groan, but we didn't lift him until we came back from hunting Roger Bell; by that time the fellow was as dead as a pickled herring. Where do you think we found Clapper Claw? Why, half a mile, almost, down the stream. He was washed along and got jammed up betwixt the roots of a sycamore. We had a long wade after him, and trouble enough to get him--more, I'm thinking, than a dead man is worth. So, give us some more rum; this is ugly work to be done in the dark."