The scupper-holes having discharged the last rivulet of blood, the decks would be washed down; and the galley-cooks would be going fore and aft, sprinkling them with hot vinegar, to take out the shambles' smell from the planks; which, unless some such means are employed, often create a highly offensive effluvia for weeks after a fight.
_Then_, upon mustering the men, and calling the quarter-bills by the light of a battle-lantern, many a wounded seaman with his arm in a sling, would answer for some poor shipmate who could never more make answer for himself: "Tom Brown ?" "Killed, sir." "Jack Jewel ?" "Killed, sir." "Joe Hardy ?" "Killed, sir." And opposite all these poor fellows' names, down would go on the quarter-bills the bloody marks of red ink--a murderer's fluid, fitly used on these occasions..