il from his history, revealing him amid the excesses of a cannibal
feast. I dragged him before a British jury; Temple hanged him in view of
an excited multitude. As he boasted that there was the end of Captain
Welsh, I broke the rope. But Temple spoiled my triumph by depriving him
of the use of his lower limbs after the fall, for he was a heavy man. I
could not contradict it, and therefore pitched all his ship's crew upon
the gallows in a rescue. Temple allowed him to be carried off by his
faithful ruffians, only stipulating that the captain was never after able
to release his neck from the hangman's slip knot. The consequence was
that he wore a shirt-collar up to his eyebrows for concealment by day,
and a pillow-case over his head at night, and his wife said she was a
deceived unhappy woman, and died of curiosity.

The talking of even such nonsense as this was a relief to us in our
impatience and helplessness, with the lights of land heaving far distant
to our fretful sight through the cabin windows.

When we had to talk reasonably we were not so successful. Captain Welsh
was one of those men who show you, whether you care to see them or not,
all the processes by which they arrive at an idea of you, upon which they
forthwith shape their course. Thus, when he came to us in the cabin, he
took the oil-lamp in his hand and examined our faces by its light; he had
no reply to our remonstrances and petitions: all he said was, 'Humph!
well, I suppose you're both gentlemen born'; and he insisted on
prosecuting his scrutiny without any reference to the tenour of our
observations.

We entreated him half imperiously to bring his ship to and put us on
shore in a boat. He bunched up his mouth, remarking, 'Know their grammar:
habit o' speaking to grooms, eh? humph.' We offered to pay largely.
'Loose o' their cash,' was his comment, and so on; and he was the more
exasperating to us because he did not look an evil-minded man; only he
appeared to be cursed with an evil opinion of us. I tried to remove it; I
spoke forbearingly. Temple, imitating me, was sugar-sweet. We exonerated
the captain from blame, excused him for his error, named the case a
mistake on both sides. That long sleep of ours, we said, was really
something laughable; we laughed at the recollection of it, a lamentable
piece of merriment.

Our artfulness and patience becoming exhausted, for the captain had
vouchsafed us no direct answer, I said at last, 'Captain Welsh,