Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/265

 into the air, and sang out, "Sail in, my shipmates!" We did sail in. With others I got my shins barked from my ankles to my knees, but never got so much as a kick at  the ball.

At eight bells, noon, the grog was rolled and all hands piped to dinner. When we repaired to the barbecue the Indians had gathered in large numbers, looking  silently but wistfully at the novel sight before them. The ox proved to be as tender as a lamb.

In firing the salute at midday, Daniel Whitehorn, one of our quarter-gunners, ramming home a charge, had his  arm dreadfully lacerated by the unexpected discharge of  the gun. This accident put a momentary stop to our hilarity. His messmates took him in charge and soothed his wounds. Jack before the mast is familiar with such scenes as this. A shipmate falling from aloft, thrown from a yard, getting washed overboard in a gale, getting  tied up to the rigging or his back lacerated with the  cats, getting knocked down with a hand-spike by the  captain or one of his mates, — witnessing such scenes it  becomes his nature to weep with them that weep and  to rejoice with them that rejoice.

After dinner the amusements proceeded, but not with the mirth of the morning, for the accident threw a gloom  over all hands. Some ball and card playing, chatting with the Indians, and taking a cruise into the woods  wound up the day. At night all hands returned on board excepting two, who had become lost in the woods. They were found three days afterward by the Indians, more dead than alive. They were nicknamed the "Babes in the Wood."