During a tempest encountered homeward-bound from the Mediterranean, a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle, dying at night in his hammock, swung in the sick-bay under the tiered gun-decks of the British Dreadnought, 98, wandering in his mind, though with glimpses of sanity, and starting up at whiles, sings by snatches his good-bye and last injunctions to two messmates, his watchers, one of whom fans the fevered tar with the flap of his old sou'-wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he involuntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings of distempered thought.
Farewell and adieu to you noble hearties, -- Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain,For I've received orders for to sail for the Deadman, But hope with the grand fleet to see you again.
I have hove my ship to, with main-top-sail aback, boys; I have hove my ship to, for to strike soundings clear --The black scud a'flying; but, by God's blessing, dam' me, Right up the Channel for the Deadman I'll steer.
I have worried through the waters that are callèd the Doldrums, And growled at Sargasso that clogs while ye grope --Blast my eyes, but the light-ship is hid by the mist, lads: -- Flying Dutchman -- odds bobbs -- off the Cape of Good Hope!
But what's this I feel that is fanning my cheek, Matt? The white goney's wing? -- how she rolls! -- 't is the Cape!Give my kit to the mess, Jock, for kin none is mine, none; And tell Holy Joe to avast with the crape.
Dead reckoning, says Joe, it won't do to go by; But they doused all the glims, Matt, in sky t' other night.Dead reckoning is good for to sail for the Deadman; And Tom Deadlight he thinks it may reckon near right.
The signal! -- it streams for the grand fleet to anchor. The captains -- the trumpets -- the hullabaloo!Stand by for blue-blazes, and mind your shank-painters, For the Lord High Admiral, he's squinting at you!
But give me my tot, Matt, before I roll over; Jock, let's have your flipper, it's good for to feel;And don't sew me up without baccy in mouth, boys, And don't blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.
