A Man Overboard!"
This Unwonted Cry Sent A Thrill Through The Heart Of Every One,
And Hurrying On Deck We
Found the vessel hove flat aback, with all
her studding-sails set; for the boy who was at the helm
Left it to
throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor,
knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback.
The watch on deck were lowering away the quarter-boat, and I got on
deck just in time to heave myself into her as she was leaving the side;
but it was not until out upon the wide Pacific, in our little boat,
that I knew whom we had lost. It was George Ballmer, a young English
sailor, who was prized by the officers as an active lad and willing
seaman, and by the crew as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate.
He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main top-mast-head,
for ringtail halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards
and a marline-spike about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock
shrouds, and not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with all
those things round his neck, he probably sank immediately. We pulled
astern, in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew that there
was no hope of saving him, yet no one wished to speak of returning, and we
rowed about for nearly an hour, without the hope of doing anything,
but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that we must give him up.
At length we turned the boat's head and made towards the vessel.
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