The Dead Mens Song | Page 2

one, eagerly seized.
C. I. H.
Louisville, November, 1914.
_THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED TO HER WHOSE FAITH IN
ME AND LOVE FOR ME NEVER WANED_

[Illustration]
DERELICT
A Reminiscence of "Treasure Island"
YOUNG E. ALLISON
_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the
rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_
(_Cap'n Billy Bones his song._)
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the
rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
The mate was fixed by the bos'n's pike,

The bos'n brained with a marlinspike
And Cookey's throat was
marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten;
And there they lay,
All good dead men,
Like break-o'-day in a boozing-ken--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Fifteen men of a whole ship's list--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and bedamned, and the rest gone

whist!--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
The skipper lay with his nob in gore

Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore--
And the scullion he
was stabbed times four.
And there they lay,
And the soggy skies
Dripped all day long
In up-staring eyes--
At murk sunset and at foul sunrise--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the Murder mark--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
'Twas a cutlass swipe, or an ounce of
lead,
Or a yawing hole in a battered head--
And the scuppers glut with a
rotting red.
And there they lay--
Aye, damn my eyes!--
All lookouts clapped
On paradise--
All souls bound just contrariwise--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]

Fifteen men of 'em good and true--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Every man jack could ha' sailed with
Old Pew--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
There was chest on chest full of
Spanish gold,
With a ton of plate in the middle hold,
And the cabins
riot of stuff untold.
And they lay there
That had took the plum,
With sightless glare
And their lips struck dumb,
While we shared all by the rule of
thumb--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

_More was seen through the sternlight screen--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Chartings ondoubt where a woman had
been--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
A flimsy shift on a bunker cot,
With
a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff-dry in a
purplish blot.
Or was she wench ...
Or some shuddering maid...?
That dared the knife
And that took the blade!
By God! she was stuff for a plucky jade--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the
rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight,

With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight,
And we heaved 'em over
and out of sight--
With a yo-heave-ho!
And a fare-you-well!
And a sullen plunge
In the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PICTURING _the_ INDIVIDUAL
One of my earliest recollections of my friend and business associate for
very many, very short and very happy years, is a conversation in the old
Chicago Press Club rooms on South Clark Street, near Madison, in the
early 90's, about three o'clock one morning, when the time for
confidences arrives--if ever it does. What his especial business in
Chicago was at that particular moment makes no particular difference.
He might have been rehearsing "The Ogallallas," or mayhap he was on
duty as Kentucky commissioner to the World's Fair. As a matter of
mere fact he was there and we had spent an evening and part of a
morning together and were bent on extending the session to daybreak.
Sunrise on Madison Street always was a wonderful sight. The dingy
buildings on that busy old thoroughfare, awakening to day-life, then
appeared as newly painted in the mellow of the early morning.
My companion knew something was coming. Our chairs were close

together--side by side--and we were looking each in the other's face. He
had his hand back of his ear. "Allison," I said--and I suppose that after
a night in his company I was so impregnated with his strong personality
that I had my hand back of my ear too, and spoke in a low, slightly
drawling nasal, like his--"Allison," I repeated, "don't you miss a great
deal by being deaf?" Now, it is said with tender regret, but a deep and
sincere regard for truth, that my friend makes a virtue of a slight
deafness. He uses it to avoid arguments, assignments, conventions,
parlor parties--and bores--and deftly evades a whole lot of "duty"
conversations as well. Of course I know all this now, but