hould have bin pulled out a bit by this time, considering my
weight."

His friend smiled incredulously.

"You may laugh, lad, but it's no laughin' matter," said Molloy, feeling
his neck tenderly. "The last time, I really thought it was all up wi'
me, for the knot somehow got agin my windpipe an' I was all but choked.
If they had kep' me up half a minute longer it would have bin all over:
I a'most wished they had, for though I never was much troubled wi' the
narves, I'm beginnin' now to have a little fellow-feelin' for the
sufferin's o' the narvish."

"Do you really mean, my dear fellow, that the monsters have been
torturing you in this way?" asked Miles, with looks of sympathy.

"Ay, John Miles, that's just what I does mean," returned the seaman,
with an anxious and startled look at the door, on the other side of
which a slight noise was heard at the moment. "They've half-hanged me
three times already. The last time was only yesterday, an' at any
moment they may come to give me another turn. It's the uncertainty o'
the thing that tries my narves. I used to boast that I hadn't got none
once, but the Arabs know how to take the boastin' out of a fellow. If
they'd only take me out to be hanged right off an' done with it, I
wouldn't mind it so much, but it's the constant tenter-hooks of
uncertainty that floors me. Hows'ever, I ain't quite floored yet. But
let's hear about yourself, Miles. Come, sit down. I gets tired sooner
than I used to do since they took to hangin' me. How have they bin
sarvin' you out since I last saw ye?"

"Not near so badly as they have been serving you, old boy," said Miles,
as he sat down and began to detail his own experiences.

"But tell me," he added, "have you heard anything of our unfortunate
comrades since we parted?"

"Nothing--at least nothing that I can trust to. I did hear that poor
Moses Pyne is dead; that they had treated him the same as me, and that
his narves couldn't stand it; that he broke down under the strain an'
died. But I don't believe it. Not that these Arabs wouldn't kill him
that way, but the interpreter who told me has got falsehood so plainly
writ in his ugly face that I would fain hope our kind-hearted friend is
yet alive."

"God grant it may be so!" said Miles fervently. "And I scarcely think
that even the cruellest of men would persevere in torturing such a
gentle fellow as Moses."

"May-hap you're right," returned Molloy; "anyhow, we'll take wha