"Begorrah!" cried Mick, who stood near me in the fore-chains, ready with a rope to chuck down into the little craft as we surged alongside it, as indeed were several others also, like prepared, forwards; "they've bin havin' a divvle ov a row, or foightin', or somethin', sure; fur Tom, look thare, me bhoy--can't ye say some soords or a pair of cutlashes or somethin' like 'em oonder the afther-thwart theer?" CHAPTER TWENTY. "JOCKO." "I believe I do, Mick," I said, squinting down as eagerly as himself into the boat, near to which the ship was gradually sidling up, her way having been checked by her being brought up to the wind and the maintop- sail backed. "They are very quiet, poor chaps. I wonder if they are all dead?" The same thought seemed to have occurred to the old commodore; for, as I said this, in pursuance of some order he must have given to that effect--for nobody does a thing on board a man-o'-war without the previous command of his superior officer--the boatswain hailed the little craft. "Boat ahoy!" he shouted, with his lungs of brass and voice of a bull. "Ahoy! Ahoy-oy!" No answer came, nor was there any movement amongst the boat's occupants, who were lying pell-mell along the thwarts and on the bottom boards in her sternsheets. "Poor fellows, they must be all dead!" exclaimed the commodore, almost in my own words. "Mr Osborne, get a boat ready to send off and overhaul her!" The officer of the watch, however, had already made preparations to this end, the first cutter's crew having been piped and the men standing ready by the davits to lower her into the water, with the gripes cast off and the falls cleared. "All ready there, coxsun, eh?" he cried; and then, without waiting for any answer, he sang out, "Lower away!" Down glided the cutter into the water as the hands inboard eased off the falls; and, her crew having dropped their oars, the next minute she was pulling out towards the boat, which was now only some twenty yards or so off the ship, abreast of our mizzen-chains. Of course, we could see from the ship all that went on as the cutter sheered up to the derelict craft. The bowman was standing up with his boathook ready to hook on when he got near enough, and Mr Osborne, the `first luff,' standing up likewise astern to inspect the better the boat and its motionless occupants, he himself having gone away in the cutter, seeing how anxious the commodore seemed in the matter, instead of sending a young midshipman as usual. Something strange must have happened, for, as our boat touched the other, we could hear a startled cry from Mr Osborne, followed by a sort of suppressed groan from the cutter's crew. This reached the commodore's ear. "Cutter, ahoy!" he hailed. "Any one alive?" "No, sir," came back the reply from Mr Osborne, in a sad tone. "All are dead--and a fearful death too!" "Why," called out the commodore eagerly, as curious as all of us were, "what's the matter?"