Scarcely had these words been spoken, when I heard a splash in the water, followed by a faint cry of distress and despair.  In the next instant the brig was hove about, and the stern-boat lowered down, accompanied by all the hurried symptoms of a man having fallen overboard.  I made the people in the boat tug at their oars towards the spot; but though we pulled over and over the ship’s wake twenty times, the water was everywhere unruffled and unmarked by any speck.  At length I rowed on board, turned the hands up to muster, to ascertain who was gone, and found all present but our poor little Triton!  It appeared that the lad, who was one of the sides-men, fatigued with the day’s amusement, had stretched himself in the fore-part of the quarter-deck hammock-netting, and gone to sleep.  The sharp voice of the officer, on seeing the gig almost alongside, had roused the unhappy boy too suddenly; he quite forgot where he was, and, instead of jumping in-board, plunged into the sea, never to rise again!

There are few accidents more frequent at sea than that of a man falling overboard; and yet, strange to say, whenever it happens, it takes every one as completely by surprise as if such a thing had never occurred before.  What is still more unaccountable, and, I must say, altogether inexcusable, is the fact of such an incident invariably exciting a certain degree of confusion, even in well-regulated ships.  Whenever I have witnessed the tumultuous rush of the people from below, their eagerness to crowd into the boats, and the reckless devotion with which they fling themselves into the water to save their companions, I could not help thinking that it was no small disgrace to us, to whose hands the whole arrangements of discipline are confided, that we had not yet fallen upon any method of availing ourselves to good purpose of so much generous activity.

Sailors are men of rough habits, but their feelings are not by any means coarse; and, generally speaking, they are much attached to one another, and will make great sacrifices to their messmates or shipmates when opportunities occur.  A very little address on the part of the officers, as I have before hinted, will secure an extension of these kindly sentiments to the quarter-deck.  But what I was alluding to just now was the cordiality of the friendships which spring up between the sailors themselves, who, it must be recollected, have no other society, and all, or almost all, whose ordinary social ties have been broken either by the chances of war, or by the very nature of their roving and desultory life, which carries them they really know not where, and care not wherefore.

I remember once, when cruising off Terceira in the Endymion, that a man fell overboard and was drowned.  After the usual confusion, and a long search in vain, the boats were hoisted up, and the hands called to make sail.  I was officer of the forecastle, and on looking about to see if all the men were at their stations, missed one of the foretop-men.  Just at that moment I observed some one curled up, and apparently hiding himself under the bow of the barge, between the boat and the booms.  “Hillo!” I said, “who are you?  What are you doing here, you skulker?  Why are you not at your station?”