Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/332

 just returned from a three years’ cruise on board the frigate Potomac.

I felt convinced that all these yarns were but too true, and said to myself, "No more navy for me, either." Thus ended my bright vision of procuring a petty officer’s berth on board a man-of-war.

A few days after this I returned to my first love, and shipped in a fore-and-after for Mobile. The schooner’s crew consisted of the captain and his father, — a very  old sailor, — a young man, myself, and a small boy. The captain’s wife and two daughters were also on board. We all bunked and messed in the cabin. The young ladies were very agreeable company.

The fifth day out, the captain’s father — familiarly known as "Old Neptune" — died very suddenly just at  daybreak. It was a bright, beautiful day. About four o’clock in the afternoon we placed the dead body on a  plank, one end of which rested on the lee rail of the  schooner, the other on the head of a barrel. The remains were covered with a very old flag. The boy stood at the tiller, my shipmate and myself stood on either  side of the foot of the plank, while the captain, his wife,  and two daughters were grouped together near the head  of the body. The captain held a Bible in his hands, but was so overcome with grief he could neither read nor  utter a word. He wept bitterly. His good wife and daughters made ineffectual efforts to comfort him in his  bereavement. It was a sad funeral. Not a word was spoken, not even a whisper. Nothing broke the solemn silence but the sobs of the dead man’s son, the rippling  of the water under the schooner’s bows, or the flapping