e wishes to read, he may draw
instruction and comfort from it; and it may, by God's grace, enable him
to perceive the evil of his career."

I accordingly took the pirate my Bible--it had been my sainted mother's.
The unhappy man's eye brightened as he saw it.

"Well, sir, I was ashamed to ask for it, and I knew not if one might be
on board; but that is the book I wanted."

I left it with him, and he was constantly reading it attentively and
earnestly; nor did he allow the sneers and jeers of his companions to
interrupt him. I had perceived a considerable change in him since he
was brought on board; and he every day seemed to grow thinner and
weaker. I thought that he was dying; and I believe that he was of the
same opinion.

Some bulkheads had been run up in the after-part of the hold to form a
cabin for Delano--not for his own comfort and convenience, because he
was the greatest villain of the gang; but in order not to allow him an
opportunity of communicating with his companions. He lay there on a
mattress, with his heavy handcuffs, and his legs chained to staples in
the deck, like a fierce hyaena, glaring on all who looked at him. I
should not, however, picture him properly if I described him as a
wild-looking savage. On the contrary, there was nothing particularly
objectionable in his face and figure. His face was thin and sallow,
without much whisker; his features were regular, and could assume a very
bland expression; his figure, too, was slight and active, and his
address not ungentlemanly: but it was his eye, when either sullen or
excited, which was perfectly terrible. Conscience he seemed to have
none: it was completely dead, as were all the better feelings of which
our nature is capable: they were destroyed, too, by his own acts--his
long unchecked career of wickedness. Once he had been gay, happy, and
innocent; but no good principles had ever taken root in his heart. Very
early, those a mother's care had endeavoured to instil into him had been
eradicated; and step by step--slow at first, perhaps--he had advanced
from bad to worse, till he became the consummate villain he now was.
But I am forestalling the account I afterwards got of him.

We had three officers' watches on board the schooner. Mr Vernon kept
one, I kept another, and an old quartermaster we had with us kept the
third. Mr Vernon, in compassion to poor Bobby Smudge, had applied for
him as cook's boy, to get him out of the way of Ch