as rested the point of his sword on the ground, and his hands upon
the hilt, and looked sadly and solemnly upon the pair. Ebsworthy broke
the silence, half reproachfully, half trying to bluster away the coming
storm.

"Well, noble captain, so you've hunted out us poor fellows; and want to
drag us back again in a halter, I suppose?"

"I came to look for Christians, and I find heathens; for men, and I find
swine. I shall leave the heathens to their wilderness, and the swine to
their trough. Parracombe!"

"He's too happy to answer you, sir. And why not? What do you want of us?
Our two years vow is out, and we are free men now."

"Free to become like the beasts that perish? You are the queen's
servants still, and in her name I charge you--

"Free to be happy," interrupted the man. "With the best of wives, the
best of food, a warmer bed than a duke's, and a finer garden than an
emperor's. As for clothes, why the plague should a man wear them where
he don't need them? As for gold, what's the use of it where Heaven sends
everything ready-made to your hands? Hearken, Captain Leigh. You've been
a good captain to me, and I'll repay you with a bit of sound advice.
Give up your gold-hunting, and toiling and moiling after honor and
glory, and copy us. Take that fair maid behind you there to wife; pitch
here with us; and see if you are not happier in one day than ever you
were in all your life before."

"You are drunk, sirrah! William Parracombe! Will you speak to me, or
shall I heave you into the stream to sober you?"

"Who calls William Parracombe?" answered a sleepy voice.

"I, fool!--your captain."

"I am not William Parracombe. He is dead long ago of hunger, and labor,
and heavy sorrow, and will never see Bideford town any more. He is
turned into an Indian now; and he is to sleep, sleep, sleep for a
hundred years, till he gets his strength again, poor fellow--"

"Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light! A christened Englishman, and living thus the life
of a beast?"

"Christ shall give thee light?" answered the same unnatural abstracted
voice. "Yes; so the parsons say. And they say too, that He is Lord of
heaven and earth. I should have thought His light was as near us here
as anywhere, and nearer too, by the look of the place. Look round!"
said he, waving a lazy hand, "and see the works of God, and the place of
Paradise, whither poor weary souls go home and rest, af