A curious frame-work of wood was made for the maimed man; and
placed in this, with all his limbs stretched out, Baldy lay flat
on the floor of the Sick-bay, for many weeks. Upon our arrival
home, he was able to hobble ashore on crutches; but from a hale,
hearty man, with bronzed cheeks, he was become a mere dislocated
skeleton, white as foam; but ere this, perhaps, his broken bones
are healed and whole in the last repose of the man-of-war's-man.

Not many days after Baldy's accident in furling sails--in this
same frenzied manner, under the stimulus of a shouting officer--a
seaman fell from the main-royal-yard of an English line-of-battle
ship near us, and buried his ankle-bones in the deck, leaving two
indentations there, as if scooped out by a carpenter's gouge.

The royal-yard forms a cross with the mast, and falling from that
lofty cross in a line-of-battle ship is almost like falling from
the cross of St. Paul's; almost like falling as Lucifer from the
well-spring of morning down to the Phlegethon of night.

In some cases, a man, hurled thus from a yard, has fallen upon
his own shipmates in the tops, and dragged them down with him to
the same destruction with himself.

Hardly ever will you hear of a man-of-war returning home after a
cruise, without the loss of some of her crew from aloft, whereas
similar accidents in the merchant service--considering the much
greater number of men employed in it--are comparatively few.

Why mince the matter? The death of most of these man-of-war's-men
lies at the door of the souls of those officers, who, while