scene I had just witnessed.

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT.

DISTRESSING DISCLOSURES, AND SOME VERY PRETTY SYMPTOMS OF BROTHERLY
LOVE--WITH MUCH EXCELLENT INDIGNATION UTTERLY THROWN AWAY--JOSHUA
DAUNTON EITHER A VERY GREAT MAN OR A VERY GREAT ROGUE--PERHAPS BOTH, AS
THE TERMS ARE OFTEN SYNONYMOUS.

I hope the reader has not forgotten Joshua Daunton, for I did not.
Having a very especial regard to the health of his body, he took care to
keep himself ill. The seventy-one lashes due to him he would most
generously have remitted altogether. His eagerness to cancel the debt
was only equal to Captain Reud's eagerness to pay, and to that of his
six midshipmen masters to see it paid. Old Pigtop was positively devout
in this wish; for, after the gash had healed, it left a very singular
scar, that traversed his lip obliquely, and gave a most ludicrous
expression to a face that was before remarkably ill-favoured. One side
of his visage seemed to have a continual ghastly smirk, like what you
might suppose to decorate the countenance of a half-drunken Succubus;
the other, a continual whimper, that reminded you of a lately-whipped
baboon.

I concluded that Daunton was really ill, for he kept to his hammock in
the sick-bay; and Dr Thompson was much too clever, and too old a
man-of-war's man, to be deceived by a simulated sickness.

The day _after_, when I was enjoying my arrest in the dignified idleness
of a snooze in a pea-jacket, on one of the lockers, the loblolly-boy
came to me, saying that Daunton was much worse, and that he humbly and
earnestly requested to see me. I went, though with much reluctance. He
appeared to be dreadfully ill, yet an ambiguous smile lighted up his
countenance when he saw me moodily standing near him.

He was seated on one corner of the bench in the bay, apparently under
the influence of ague, for he trembled excessively, and he was well
wrapped up in blankets. Altogether, notwithstanding the regularity of
his features, he was a revolting spectacle. The following curious
dialogue ensued:

"Daunton, I am ready to hear you."

"Thank you, Ralph."

"Fellow! you may have heard that I am a prisoner--in disgrace--but not
in dishonour; but know, scoundrel, that if I were to swing the next
minute at the yardarm, I would not tolerate or answer to such
familiarity. Speak respectfully, or I leave you."

"Mr Rattlin, pray do not speak so loudly, or the other invalids will
hear us."

"Hear us, sirrah