href="#ulink_44355809-fe2c-5639-801d-cd0ec18a6b36">CHAPTER LXXIII.
NIGHT AND DAY GAMBLING IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
"SINK, BURN, AND DESTROY."— Printed Admiralty orders in time of war .
HOW MAN-OF-WAR'S-MEN DIE AT SEA.
HOW THEY BURY A MAN-OF-WAR'S-MAN AT SEA.
WHAT REMAINS OF A MAN-OF-WAR'S-MAN AFTER HIS BURIAL AT SEA.
THE GREAT MASSACRE OF THE BEARDS.
THE REBELS BROUGHT TO THE MAST.
THE SOCIAL STATE IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
SMOKING-CLUB IN A MAN-OF-WAR, WITH SCENES ON THE GUN-DECK DRAWING NEAR HOME.
CHAPTER I.
THE JACKET.
It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.
The way I came by it was this.
When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru—her last harbour in the Pacific—I found myself without a grego, or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end of a three years' cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward: and being bound for Cape Horn, some sort of a substitute was indispensable; I employed myself, for several days, in manufacturing an outlandish garment of my own devising, to shelter me from the boisterous weather we were so soon to encounter.
It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or rather shirt: which, laying on deck, I folded double at the bosom, and by then making a continuation of the slit there, opened it lengthwise—much as you would cut a leaf in the last new novel. The gash being made, a metamorphosis
