he last sense of having fought a good fight, but
fallen away from human arms, into "Oh Lord, receive my spirit!"

CHAPTER LV

IN SAVAGE GUISE

"A man came out of the sea to-day, and made me believe we were all found
out," said the gay Charron to the gloomy Carne, a day or two after poor
Scudamore's wreck. "I never beheld a more strange-looking creature as
the owner of our human face divine, as some of your poets have found
to say. He has hair from his head all down to here"--the little Captain
pointed to a part of his system which would have been larger in more
tranquil times--"and his clothes were so thin that one was able to see
through them, and the tint of his face was of roasted sugar, such as it
is not to obtain in England. A fine place for fat things, but not for
thin ones."

"My friend, you arouse my curiosity," the master of the feast, which was
not a very fat one, answered, as he lazily crossed his long legs; "you
are always apprehensive about detection, of which I have ceased to
entertain all fear, during the short time that remains. This stranger of
yours must have been very wet, if he had just appeared out of the sea.
Was it that which made his clothes transparent, like those of the higher
class of ladies?"

"You have not the right understanding of words. He was appeared out of
the sea, but the wood of a boat was spread between them. He was as dry
as I am; and that is saying much, with nothing but this squeezing of bad
apples for to drink."

"Ah, we shall have better soon. What an impatient throat it is! Well,
what became of this transparent man, made of burnt sugar, and with hair
below his belt?"

"I tell you that you take it in a very different way. But he was a long
man, as long almost as you are, and with much less of indolence in the
moving of his legs. It was not sincerely wise for me to exhibit myself,
in the land. I was watching for a signal from the sea, and a large ship,
not of the navy but of merchants, was hanging off about a league and
delaying for her boat. For this reason I prevented him from seeing me,
and that created difficulty of my beholding him. But he was going along
the basin of the sea towards Springhaven--'Springport' it is designated
by the Little Corporal; ah ha, how the language of the English comes
left to him!"

"And how right it comes to you, my friend, through your fine self-denial
in speaking it with me! It is well for our cause that it is not
sincerely wise