He laughed, and said, "I suppose the old boy finds salt
water not quite so palatable as grog. Tie some more shot to his feet,
and bring the old fellow to his moorings again. Tell him, the next
time he trips his anchor, not to run on board of us. He had his
regular allowance of prayer: I gave him the whole service, and I shall
not give him any more." So saying, he went to sleep again.
This apparently singular circumstance is easily accounted for. Bodies
decomposing from putridity, generate a quantity of gas, which swells
them up to an enormous size, and renders them buoyant. The body of
this man was thrown overboard just as decomposition was in progress:
the shot made fast to the feet were sufficient to sink it at the time;
but in a few hours after were not competent to keep it at the bottom,
and it came up to the surface in that perpendicular position which I
have described. The current in the bay being at the time either slack
or irregular, it floated at the spot whence it had been launched into
the water.
The cutter, being manned, was sent with more shot to attach to the
body, and sink it. When they attempted to hold it with the boat-hook,
it eluded the touch, turning round and round, or bobbing under the
water, and coming up again, as if in sport: but accident saved them
any further trouble; for the bowman, reproached by the boat's crew
for not hooking the body, got angry, and darting the spike of the
boat-hook into the abdomen, the pent-up gas escaped with a loud whiz,
and the corpse instantly sank like a stone.
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