CHAPTER XVII.
AWAY! SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH CUTTERS, AWAY! It was the morning succeeding one of these _general quarters_ that we picked up a life-buoy, descried floating by.
It was a circular mass of cork, about eight inches thick and four feet in diameter, covered with tarred canvas.

All round its circumference there trailed a number of knotted ropes'-ends, terminating in fanciful Turks' heads.

These were the life-lines, for the drowning to clutch.
Inserted into the middle of the cork was an upright, carved pole, somewhat shorter than a pike-staff.

The whole buoy was embossed with barnacles, and its sides festooned with sea-weeds.

Dolphins were sporting and flashing around it, and one white bird was hovering over the top of the pole.