eged to make themselves uncommon
skase for less. I have know'd men Lynched for less, and beaten into
punkin'-sarse for less, by an enlightened people. We are the intellect
and virtue of the airth, the cream of human natur', and the flower
Of moral force. Our backs is easy ris. We must be cracked-up, or they
rises, and we snarls. We shows our teeth, I tell you, fierce. You'd
better crack us up, you had!'

After the delivery of this caution, Mr Chollop departed; with Ripper,
Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the shortest notice.

'Come out from under the blanket, sir,' said Mark, 'he's gone. What's
this!' he added softly; kneeling down to look into his partner's
face, and taking his hot hand. 'What's come of all that chattering and
swaggering? He's wandering in his mind to-night, and don't know me!'

Martin indeed was dangerously ill; very near his death. He lay in that
state many days, during which time Mark's poor friends, regardless of
themselves, attended him. Mark, fatigued in mind and body; working
all the day and sitting up at night; worn with hard living and the
unaccustomed toil of his new life; surrounded by dismal and discouraging
circumstances of every kind; never complained or yielded in the least
degree. If ever he had thought Martin selfish or inconsiderate, or had
deemed him energetic only by fits and starts, and then too passive for
their desperate fortunes, he now forgot it all. He remembered nothing
but the better qualities of his fellow-wanderer, and was devoted to him,
heart and hand.

Many weeks elapsed before Martin was strong enough to move about with
the help of a stick and Mark's arm; and even then his recovery, for want
of wholesome air and proper nourishment, was very slow. He was yet in a
feeble and weak condition, when the misfourtune he had so much dreaded
fell upon them. Mark was taken ill.

Mark fought against it; but the malady fought harder, and his efforts
were in vain.

'Floored for the present, sir,' he said one morning, sinking back upon
his bed; 'but jolly!'

Floored indeed, and by a heavy blow! As any one but Martin might have
known beforehand.

If Mark's friends had been kind to Martin (and they had been very), they
were twenty times kinder to Mark. And now it was Martin's turn to work,
and sit beside the bed and watch, and listen through the long, long
nights, to every sound in the gloomy wilderness; and hear poor Mr
Tapley, in his wandering fancy, pla