to get ashore on liberty that night, and razee the
house from which I had been turned away. But I persuaded them out of the
notion, and the landlord went clear.

Alter a while, I got a direction to a boarding-house near the Yard, and
went to it, with a message from my old shipmates that they would be
responsible for the pay. But to this the man would not listen; he took me
in on my own account, saying that no blue-jacket should be turned from
_his_ door, in distress. Here I staid and got a comfortable night's rest.
Next day I was a new man, holy-stoned the decks, and went a second time to
the Department.

All the gentlemen in the office showed a desire to serve and advise me.
The Pension Clerk gave me a lettersailed for Samarang. While at Sourabaya there were
five English sailors in the hospital. These men were as forlorn and
miserable as my self, death grinning in our faces at every turn. The men
who were brought into the hospital one day, were often dead the next, and
none of us knew whose turn would come next. We often talked together, on
religious subjects, after our own uninstructed manner, and greatly did we
long to find an English bible, a thing not to be had there. Then it was I
thought, again, of the sermon I had heard at the Sailors' Retreat, of the
forfeited promises I had made to reform; and, more than once did it cross
my mind, should God permit me to return home, that I would seek out that
minister, and ask his prayers