hful that
might have kept her own soul in the body a little longer."

"What did she, when you brought her to the light?"

"What did she!" repeated Fid, whose voice was getting thick and husky,
"why, she did a d----d honest thing; she gave the boy the crumb, and
motioned as well as a dying woman could, that we should have an eye over
him, till the cruise of life was up."

"And was that all?"

"I have always thought she prayed; for something passed between her and
one who was not to be seen, if a man might judge by the fashion in which
her eyes were turned aloft, and her lips moved. I hope, among others, she
put in a good word for one Richard Fid; for certain she had as little need
to be asking for herself as any body. But no man will ever know what she
said, seeing that her mouth was shut from that time for ever after."

"She died!"

"Sorry am I to say it. But the poor lady was past swallowing when she came
into our hands, and then it was but little we had to offer her. A quart of
water, with mayhap a gill of wine, a biscuit, and a handful of rice, was
no great allowance for two hearty men to pull a boat some seventy leagues
within the tropics. Howsomever, when we found no more was to be got from
the wreck, and that, since the air had escaped by the hole we had cut, she
was settling fast, we thought it best to get out of her: and sure enough
we were none too soon, seeing that she went under just as we had twitched
our jolly-boat clear of the suction."

"And the boy--the poor deserted child!" exclaimed the governess, whose
eyes had now filled to over-flowing.

"There you are all aback, my Lady. Instead of deserting him, we brought
him away with us, as we did the only other living creature to be found
about the wreck. But we had still a long journey before us, and, to make
the matter worse, we were out of the track of the traders. So I put it
down as a case for a council of all hands, which was no more than I and
the black, since the lad was too weak to talk and little could he have
said otherwise in our situation. So I begun myself, saying, says I,
'Guinea, we must eat either this here dog, or this here boy. If we eat the
boy, we shall be no better than the people in your own country, who, you
know, my Lady, are cannibals; but if we eat the dog, poor as he is we may
make out to keep soul and body together, and to give the child the other
matters.'--So Guinea, he says, says he, 'I've no occasion for food at all;
g