'Lively, boys, lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged
like fifty fire-engines; the men tossed their hats off to it,
and ere long that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard
which denotes the fullest tension of life's utmost energies.
"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman
went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass;
his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat
from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed
Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state,
I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck,
the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks,
and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon
allowing a pig to run at large.
"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household
work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended
to every evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships
actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility
of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen;
some of whom would not willingly drown without first washing their faces.
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