"Ah, I thought so; was that the water you made that glass of grog with?" Sinner that I was, I knew as well as he that it was not. "No, sir, we have not used the water yet." I was sawing away, and munching the beef and biscuit aforesaid, all this while, most resolutely. "No!" said I; "should like to try the water; make me the smallest taste of grog in the world with it, the least drop--very pure and cool--capital water, I declare--rather too strong, Lennox, fill up the tumbler if you please; so--ah--too much man--it is if any thing too weak _now_;" here a little dash of spirits--"so"--and chuckling to myself that I had thus smuggled a second glass of grog in defiance of conscience, I desired the man to make down my bed, and prepared to turn in. El Señor Teniente had also been making very good use of his time, and chuckling to himself at my colloquy with the marine. "And here, Lennox, tell Mr Marline to call me if the wind changes, or any thing occurs worth reporting; and take the skylight off if you please." I now began to undress, and Lennox had returned to help me. The cool water had a surprising effect; my spirits suddenly became buoyant beyond all belief; so, after various _churmings_, I broke forth into involuntary song, as the poets say-- "'Estoy un hombre chico, Mas contento soy que rico, Y mi buque es un zapato.' "My slippers--thank you--oh what a lovely boy-- 'Con mono para patron'-- nightcap--what a glorious little man it was-- 'El piloto es uno gato; Y su rabo es el timon.' 'Estoy un hombre chico, Mas contento soy que rico, Tol de rol, lol di rol.'" Little Benjamin, having by this manoeuvre gotten half-_fou_, vanisheth into his _cavey_. Here Dennis Donovan stuck his head out of a side-berth. "Why, Lanyard--Lanyard, I say."--Dick was already in his berth, and sound asleep. "That fellow, now, tumbles into his sleep like a pig into the mire--all of a heap--Lennox." "Here, sir." "What howling is that--Whose pig's dead, Lennox?" "It's Mr Brail singing, sir." "Singing!--singing!--and is it _singing_ he calls it?" CHAPTER IX. FOUNDERING OF THE HERMES. I was dreaming of the party I had so recently left, and again I was confabulating with the mild placid women, and the fair child was also there. Oh, who can appreciate the delights of female society like the poor devil who has been condemned, month after month, to the gruff society of great _he_ men on shipboard, and whose horizon has during all that time been the distant meeting of sea and sky! "Hillo, Brail, my boy--Brail." "What is that--who the deuce hails so uproariously?" quoth I, more than half asleep; "why, what is the matter?"