ce, disconsolately pacing. He was a little
flushed with the wine he had taken, but perfectly sane. He came up to
me kindly, and, placing his hands upon my shoulders, looked me fully and
sorrowfully in the face. There was no wild speculation in his eyes;
they looked mild and motherly. The large tears gathered in each
gradually, and, at length, overflowing the sockets, slowly trickled down
his thin and sallow cheeks. He then pressed his right hand heavily on
the top part of his forehead, exclaiming, in a voice so low, so
mournful, and so touching, that my bosom swelled at its tones, "It is
here;--it is here!"

"Ralph, my good Ralph," said he, after he had seated himself; weeping
all the while bitterly, "we will take leave of each other now. We are
true brothers in sorrow--our afflictions are the same--you have lost
your identity, and I mine. Ever since that cursed night at Aniana, John
Reud's soul was loosened from his body; I have the greatest trouble to
keep it fixed to my corporeal frame; it goes away, in spite of me, at
times, and some other soul gets into this withered carcass, and plays me
sad tricks--sad tricks, Rattlin--sad tricks. My identity is gone, and
so, poor youth, is yours. We will part friends. These tears are not
all for you--they are for myself; too. I do not mind crying before you
now, for it is not the true John Reud that is now weeping. You think
that I have been a tyrant to you--but, I tell you, Rattlin, there is a
tyrant in the ship greater than I--it is that horrible Dr Thompson. He
is plotting to take away my commission, and to get me into a madhouse!--
oh, my God!--my God! remove from me this agony. Hath Thine awful storm
no thunderbolt--Thy wave no tomb! Must I die on the straw, like a beast
of burden worn to death by loathsome toil?--and so many swords to have
flashed harmlessly over my head, so many balls to have whistled idly
past my body! But, God's will be done! Bear yourself, my dear body,
carefully in the presence of all medical men. They have the eye of the
fanged adder. You know that your identity also has been questioned; but
your fate is happier than mine, for you can hear, see, touch, your
double; but mine always eludes me, when I come home, after an excursion,
to my own temple. But, if I were you, when I got hold of the thing that
says it is, and is _not_, yourself, I would grind it, I would crush it,
I would destroy it!"

"I will, so may Heaven help me at my u