"The frigate's piped her boats away, sir." The old man's head, still forward on his breast, did not move; he did not seem to breathe. All of him was dead save that little eye, cocking up at the lad from under the tilted hat. "Canst walk?" "Yes, sir. I'm not wounded, only stunned." "Then run below to Mr. Lanyon, and tell him to bide my whistle." "Where is he, sir?" "Where he ought to be," growled the old man--"powder-magazine o coorse." The eye closed: the little ray of soul, still haunting the body, seemed quenched for ever; but it was not. "And bring along a brace o round-shot when ye coom back, wilta?" came the painful voice out of the deeps. II Kit slid down the companion ladder. The lower deck was half awash, and foul with smoke. There was a stink of dead men, bilge, and powder. But what a change from when he was last here! Then sights so ghastly that he dared not recall them: screams of torn men, rending of torn planks; howling terrors on every side, shattering his head, bursting his heart, dissipating his mind. Now silence everywhere, beautiful silence, the silence of Death. And those leaping devils with the hoarse throats, who had barked themselves red-hot then, were strangely hushed now. Loosed from their moorings, they huddled, together beneath him half under water, like so many great black beasts, cowed, it seemed, almost ashamed; here a huge breech showing, there a blunt snout, and again a thrusting trunnion. As he crawled along in the gloom among blackened corpses he thanked God for the stillness. It was comforting to him as water in the desert to a man dying. He drank it in gulps. A sound in the darkness and silence stopped him. Out of the deeps a shuddering voice rose up to him, mumbling a Litany of the dead, "Lord ha mercy on me a sinner-- Lord ha mercy on me a sinner-- Lord ha mercy on me a sinner." The boy crept to the forehatch and peered down. One tiny yellow star flickered in the pitch blackness beneath. "Mr. Lanyon!" His voice was frightened of itself. "Is that you?" The Litany ceased. Some one cleared his throat. "That's me, sir," came a voice from the pit. "I'm back where I belong--in her bow'ls." The Gunner was squatting in a powder barrel, a lighted purser's glim between his teeth, and a pistol in one hand. Kit caught the glimmer of naked shoulders, the wet gleam of eyes, and the shine of sweat on a face black as a sweep's. "I was ummin all the bawdy bits I know to keep me company," called up a voice husky as a ghost's and cheery as a robin's: "It's lonesome-like kickin your heels in the dark against the powder bar'l you're goin to ell in next minute. Not that it's ell I mind. Ell's all right once you're there. It's the gettin there's the trouble--the messin about and waitin and that."