beloved by the ship’s company; they had gone aloft full of spirit and vigour, desirous to obey orders; the last beams of the sun, as it just touched the verge of the horizon, shone upon their light but manly frames stretching out to secure the leeches of the sail to the yard; and before the upper limb of the bright luminary had disappeared, they laid stretched on the deck, each a lifeless and mangled corpse! It’s hard lines that, your honour;” and the veteran held down his head in mournful cogitation. “Hard lines indeed, old friend,” said I; “and really it seems surprising that men should so far forget the social ties, which in every station ought to bind together the brethren of the _dust_, as to commit deliberate acts of cruelty.” “Mayhap you’re right, sir,” answered the pensioner, “though I can’t say exactly as I understands it all. As for being _dustmen_, we arn’t got no such great matter of dust at sea, because of the soakings we get; and sailors are apt to moisten their _clay_ a bit when they can lay hold of the stuff. But with regard to the cruelty! there unfortunately was too much of it. But to return to my story. The poor lads were carried below, and many a half stifled curse was muttered as their shipmates touched the shattered limbs, and stained their hands in the blood of innocence. A silent, but deep feeling of revenge passed from heart to heart; the face was calm and smooth, but there was a storm in the breast that raged with fury. Well, your honour, the surgeon reported to Mr. Spriggs, the first-lieutenant, that the lads were both dead; and he--that’s the first-lieutenant,--told the captain, who immediately said, ‘Throw the lubbers overboard.’ And this was done,--for to have read any sarvice over them would have been insult and mockery; and thus were two human beings sent out of the world worse than dogs. Not that I think a cast of the parson’s office is of any great consequence to a dead man; but nevertheless, the living like to see things o’that kind done somewhat ship-shape, and besides there’s many a warm glow of friendship lighted up among messmates, when natur stirs within ’em over an ocean grave. The words ‘We commit his body to the deep,’ that deep whose surface is as familiar to a seaman, as the face of the mother is to the infant, and under ‘the sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection,’--oh, your honour, I can’t explain what I mean, but take an old tar’s word that there’s none so sensible of the power of the Almighty as them who are constantly hearing his voice upon the waters, and who so often witness the opening of his hands to loose the tempest.” The veteran paused for a moment or two, gazing intently upon the picture, as if the scene he had described was present to his view; he then continued, “The hands were called on deck and very threatening language used to them, and some were particularly pointed out as the next to be seized up at the gangway. That night, when the