I remained in this sad situation several weeks, carefully attended by the surgeon, and watched by the men as tenderly as their rough hands could perform the office of nurse. My destiny was considered as being sealed, both by the crew and by myself. I was much troubled at the thought of dying: it seemed dark and dreary to enter the valley of the shadow of death without the presence of a Saviour. To relieve my feelings, I frequently repeated the Lord’s prayer, taught me by my indulgent mother in my earlier and brighter years. But my mind was dark and disconsolate; there were none among that kind-hearted but profligate crew to point my soul to its proper rest. While lying in this state, my life hanging in a doubtful balance, one of the crew, named Black Tom, an African, was taken sick. His hammock was hung up in the sick bay, a part of the main deck appropriated to hospital purposes. Poor Tom, having a constitution already undermined by former excesses, soon fell under the attack of disease. He was then sewed up in his hammock, with some shot at his feet: at sundown the ship’s bell pealed a melancholy note, the ship was “hove to,” all hands mustered on deck, but myself; and, amid the most profound silence, the body of the departed sailor was laid upon the grating and launched into the great deep, the resting-place of many a bold head. A plunge, a sudden opening in the water, followed by an equally sudden return of the disparted waves, and Black Tom was gone forever from his shipmates! In a few moments the yards were braced round, and our frigate was cutting her way again through the wide ocean waste. It seemed to me that she was soon destined to heave to again, that I might also be consigned to an ocean grave. But in this I was happily disappointed. By the blessing of a watchful Providence, the aid of a sound constitution, assisted by the skill of our surgeon and the kindness of my shipmates, I was at last able to leave my hammock. Shortly after our return to Lisbon, I was pronounced fit for duty, and the surgeon having obtained another boy, I was placed on the quarter deck, in the capacity of messenger, or errand boy for the captain and his officers.