NIGHTS IN THE GALLEY. SECOND YARN. 



AT the usual time I hurried into my corner, lit my cigar, and 

 waited patiently for the congregation. Jack Murray soon arrived, 

 ,and the topmen mustering thick, he was soon called upon to finish 

 his yarn. 



" Well, lads, I can tell you there is nothing 'tic'lar to come, but if 

 you will hear what became of uncle, here goes : 



" After the ship's company had got possession of the ship, and been 

 murdering every body fore and aft, they gave the command to my 

 uncle, gave him the captain's cabin, and every thing ship-shape. 

 Well, when all the row was over, and the men began to cool a-bit, 

 my uncle hauled the ship to the wind till the next morning, that they 

 might determine what they would do with her. Well, when she was 

 all snug for the night, under double-reefed topsails and courses, down 

 goes my uncle into his cabin, to lay down and think of what he had 

 .done. He was a kind-hearted man, and was very sorry to have shed 

 so much blood, and this made him rather melancholy, and the loss of 

 his messmate, poor Brown, and all together he could not get to sleep 

 at all ; well, after he had been rolling about some time in his cot, he 

 heard a noise in the cabin like somebody moving ; he thought at first 

 it was only fancy, so he laid still a little while to listen, but he heard 

 it again, so out he jumps, grasps his cutlass, and moves over to the 

 starboard side where the noise comes from ; it was quite dark, and 

 just as he was groping his way somebody caught hold of him, and 

 cried, ' Save me ! save me !' so he seizes hold of the feller, and asks 

 who he was and who do you think it was ? why old Nibcheese 

 (purser) ; directly the row began he had stowed himself away in the 

 quarter gallery ; and so he begs of my uncle to save his life, and he 

 would do any thing he would be my uncle's servant, any thing, if 

 he would save his life my uncle promised him he would, and the 

 next morning he told the ship's company what he had done ; and, 

 after a good deal of palaver, they all agreed not to kill him, though 

 they did not like him much, for he had made many dead men ' chew 

 tobacco ;' but, however, thev were tired of killing, so they only made 

 him promise that if they saved his life he would not inform against 

 them, even if he should have an opportunity, all this he promised 

 that was all right ; now they had only to settle what they would do 

 with the ship, so my uncle called all the men aft to think about it ; 

 just as they were all tumbling up from below, the man at the mast- 

 head shouted, f a sail a-head !' all hands were now on the look out, 

 some thought it was best to bear up and get out of her way, but my 

 uncle said, ' wait a little, lads, till I go aloft and see what she is ;' so 

 up he goes with a spy-glass in his fist, and gets a squint at her from 

 the foretop-mast cross-trees, down he came, flying, by the backstays, 

 and aft he goes : ' lads/ he says, says he, ' that's no man-of-war, she's 

 no more nor a merchant ship bound for England/ and he says, * I am 

 an old man, and have got a wife and four children in England, and I 



