it was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. in this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. from hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.