The bell ceased; the midshipman struck ten o’clock upon it; the Jacks on the quarter-deck made a lane, and down it from forward came four hearty seamen, bearing upon their shoulders a hatch grating, on which was the hammock containing the body, covered with England’s commercial ensign. One end of this grating was rested upon the lee rail; then the captain began to read the sea funeral service. Mr. Johnson, who stood near me, stared thirstily at the scene; and methought Mr. Emmett, who was perched on the rail to windward, rolled his eye over the mass of colour that softened and brightened as the movement of the ship shifted the shadows, as though some fancies of a startling canvas to be wrought out of the spectacle were stirring in his mind. The captain paused in his delivery; the ensign was whipped off, the grating tilted, and the white hammock flashed overboard. I was at the lee rail, and glanced down into the sea alongside as the hammock sped from the bulwark. But the ocean coffin, instead of sinking, went floating astern like a lifebuoy, bobbing bravely upon the summer tumble, and lifting and sinking upon the swell as duck-like as a waterborne lifeboat. I believe no man saw this but myself, everybody listening reverentially to the closing words of the skipper’s recital from the Prayer-book. I walked hastily aft to observe the hammock as it veered into our wake, and beckoned to Mr. Cocker, who at once crossed the deck. ‘See there!’ cried I, pointing to the thing that was frisking in the eddies upturned by our keel, and crawling into the distance to the slow progress of the ship. ‘Friend Crabb seems in no hurry to knock at Davy Jones’s door.’ ‘I expect the fool of a sailmaker forgot to weight the body,’ said he. ‘Unless,’ he added, with a little change in his voice, as if he meant what he said, whilst he did not wish me to suppose him in earnest, ‘the chap was too great a rascal when alive to sink now that he’s nothing but a body.’ ‘I thought,’ I exclaimed, ‘that wicked sailors, like Falstaff, had an alacrity in sinking.’