"Well," said Frank, "the water will reach me first, and you'll be one of the last to go under; you've that for a satisfaction." "I believe that's what he chose the top berth for," said Harris. "How can you be joking, such a time as this?" said John. "Here's Atwater, fast asleep! Are you, Atwater?" "No," said the soldier, who lay sick, with his thoughts far away. "Ellis is; ain't you, Ellis?" And Jack reached to shake his comrade. "How can you be asleep, Ned, when we're all going to the bottom?" "Let me alone!" growled Ned. "We are going to the bottom," said Jack,--the ship just then rolling in the trough of the sea. "I can't help it if we are," replied Ellis, sick and stupefied; "and I don't care much. Let me go to the bottom in peace." "O Lord! O Lord! O Lord!" moaned Jack, in despair, feeling more like praying than ever before in his life. Tucket had a line of poetry to suit his case:-- "'And then some prayed--the first time in some years;'" he said, quoting Byron. And he proceeded with a description of a shipwreck, which was not very edifying to the unhappy Winch: "'Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,'" etc. "I never would have enlisted if I was such a coward as Jack," said Harris, contemptuously. "I ain't a coward," retorted Jack. "I enlisted to fight, not to go to sea and be drowned." "Drownded--ded--ded--dead!" said Tucket. "O, yes," said Harris, "you are mighty fierce for getting ashore and fighting. But when you were on land you were just as glad to get to sea. Now I hope you'll get enough of it. I wouldn't mind a shipwreck myself, just to hear you scream." Then Tucket: "'At first one universal shriek there rushed, louder than the loud ocean,--like a crash of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, save the wild wind, and the remorseless dash of billows; but at intervals there gushed, accompanied with a convulsive splash, a solitary shriek--the babbling cry of private Winch, in his last agony!'" After this, conversation ceased for a time, and there was no noise but of the storm, and the groanings of the ship and of the sick. Frank could not sleep, but, clinging to his berth, and listening to the shock of billows, thought of the other vessels of that brave fleet, scattered and tossed, and wondered at the awful power of the sea. Then he remembered the story Corporal Gray had that day told them of the great Spanish Armada, which sailed in the days of Queen Elizabeth to invade England, and was blown to its destruction by the storms of the Almighty; and he questioned within himself whether this proud expedition was destined for a similar fate. Already he seemed to hear the lamentations of those at home, and the frantic rejoicings of the rebels.