he old up-country shivers, or something of the
kind. It's a thing you never entirely pull round from, once you've had
it. I'll be all right, though, in a day or two."

The speaker was lying on his bed, clad in his trousers and shirt. The
latter, open from the throat, revealed part of a great livid scar,
running diagonally across the swarthy chest, and representing what must
have been a terrific slash. Two other scars also showed on the muscular
forearm, half-way between elbow and wrist. What was it to Laurence
whether this person or that person lived or died? Why, nothing. Yet
there was something so pathetic, so helpless in the aspect of the man,
lying there day after day, patient, solitary, uncomplaining--shunned and
avoided by those around--that appealed powerfully to his feelings.
Heavens! was he turning soft-hearted at his time of life, that he should
feel so unaccountably stirred by the bare act of coming to visit this
ailing and unbefriended stranger?

In truth, there was nothing awe-inspiring about the latter now. His
piercing black eyes seemed large and soft; the expression of his dark
face was one of weariful helplessness, yet of schooled patience. A queer
thought flashed through Laurence's brain. Was it in Hazon's power to
produce whatever effect he chose upon the minds of others? Had he
chosen, for some inscrutable purpose, to render himself shunned and
feared? Was he now, on like principle, adopting the surest means to win
over to him this one man who had sought him out on his lonely sick-bed?
and if so, to what end? It was more than a passing thought, nor from
that moment onward could Laurence ever get it entirely out of his mind.

"Fill your pipe, Stanninghame," said Hazon, breaking into this train of
thought, which, all unconsciously, had entailed a long gap of silence.
"I don't in the least mind smoke, although I can't blow off a cloud
myself just now--at least I have no inclination that way," he added,
reaching for a bottle of white powder which stood upon a box by the
bedside, and mixing himself a modicum of quinine.

"Had a doctor of any sort, Hazon?"

"What good would that do--except to the doctor? I know what's the
matter with me, and I know exactly what to do for it. I don't want to
pay another fellow a couple of guineas or so to tell me. Not but what
doctors have their uses--in wounds and surgery, for instance. But I'm
curiously like an animal. When I get anything the matter with me--which
I