Ere my watch in the top had expired, high up on the main-royal-yard I reclined, the white jacket folded around me like Sir John Moore in his frosted cloak.
Eight bells had struck, and my watchmates had hied to their hammocks, and the other watch had gone to their stations, and the _top_ below me was full of strangers, and still one hundred feet above even _them_ I lay entranced; now dozing, now dreaming; now thinking of things past, and anon of the life to come.

Well-timed was the latter thought, for the life to come was much nearer overtaking me than I then could imagine.

Perhaps I was half conscious at last of a tremulous voice hailing the main-royal-yard from the _top_.

But if so, the consciousness glided away from me, and left me in Lethe.

But when, like lightning, the yard dropped under me, and instinctively I clung with both hands to the "_tie_," then I came to myself with a rush, and felt something like a choking hand at my throat.