hen he was sick, and I told him no.

"And how came you to undertake it?" says he.

"Why," said I, "I was here on business, and found you lying nigh dead in
this place."

He looked at me for a little while in a mightily strange way, and then
suddenly burst into a great loud laugh. After that he lay still for a
while, watching me, but presently he spoke again.

"And did you find it?" says he.

"Find what?" I asked, after a bit, for I was struck all aback by the
question, and could not at first find one word to say. But he only burst
out laughing again. "Why," says he, "you psalm-singing, Bible-reading,
straitlaced Puritan skippers are as keen as a sail-needle; you'll come
prying about in a man's house looking for what you would like to find,
and all under pretence of doing an act of humanity, but after all you
find an honest devil of a pirate is a match for you."

I made no answer to this, but my heart sank within me; for I perceived,
what I might have known before, that he had observed the object of my
coming thither.

He soon became strong enough to move about the place a little, and from
that time I noticed a great change in him, and that he seemed to regard
me in a very evil way. One evening when I came into the hut, after an
absence in the town, I saw that he had taken down one of his pistols
from the wall, and was loading it and picking the flint. He kept that
pistol by him for a couple of days, and was forever fingering it,
cocking it, and then lowering the hammer again.

I do not know why he did not shoot me through the brains at this time;
for I verily believe that he had it upon his mind to do so, and that
more than once. And now, in looking back upon the business, it appears
to me to be little less than a miracle that I came forth from this
adventure with my life. Yet had I certainly known that death was waiting
upon me, I doubt that I should have left that place; for in truth, now
that I had escaped from the _Lavinia_, as above narrated, I had nowhere
else to go, nor could I ever show my face in England or amongst my own
people again. Thus matters stood until one morning the whole business
came to an end so suddenly and so unexpectedly that for a long while I
felt as though all might be a dream, from which I should soon awake.

We were sitting together silently, he in a very moody and bitter humor.
He had his pistol lying across his knees, as he used to do at that time.

Suddenly he turned to me as