mingled bewilderment
and fear.

"This is scurvy usage to give a shipmate in distress," said he. "'Od's
life, man! I had thought there was some sense of humour in you. Your
hand, Mr. Rodney; I feel dazed."

I helped him to rise, and he then sat down in a somewhat rickety manner,
rubbing his eyes. It might have been fancy, it might have been the
illusion of the furnace light combined with the venerable appearance his
long hair and naked pate gave him, but methought in those few minutes he
had grown to look twenty years older.

"Never concern yourself about my humour, Mr. Tassard," said I,
preserving my determined air and coming close to him again. "How is it
to stand between us? I leave the choice to you. If you will treat me
civilly you'll not find me wanting in every disposition to render our
miserable state tolerable; but if you insult me, use me injuriously, and
act the pirate over me, who am an honest man, by God, Mr. Tassard, I
will kill you."

He stooped away from me, and raised his hand in a posture as if to fend
me off, and cried in a whining manner, "I lost my head--this gunpowder
business hath been a hellish disappointment, look you, Mr. Rodney. Come!
We will drink a can to our future amity!"

I answered coldly that I wanted no more wine and bade him beware of me,
that he had gone far enough, that our hideous condition had filled my
soul with desperation and misery, and that I would not have my life on
this frozen schooner made more abominable than it was by his swagger,
lies, and insults, and I added in a loud voice and in a menacing manner
that death had no terrors for me, and that I would dispatch him with as
little fear as I should meet my doom, whatever shape it took.

I marched on deck, not a little astounded by the cowardice of the old
rascal, and very well pleased with the marked impression my bearing and
language had produced on him. Not that I supposed for a moment that my
bold comportment would save me from his knife or his pistol when he
should think proper to make away with me. No. All I reckoned upon was
cowing him into a civiller posture of mind, and checking his aggressions
and insolence. As to his murdering me, I was very sure he would not
attempt such an act whilst we remained imprisoned. Loneliness would have
more horrors for him than for me; and though my machinery of mines had
apparently failed, he was shrewd enough, despite his rage of
disappointment, to understand that more was to