the
contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and read the
letter aloud.

'"My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies"--'

Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked fixedly
at the coast of Greenland.

'--"in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that if you
were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me;
and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this letter, Ned, I am
likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old friend's folly then,
and will feel for the restlessness and uncertainty in which he wandered
away on such a wild voyage. So no more of that. I have little hope that
my poor boy will ever read these words, or gladden your eyes with
the sight of his frank face any more." No, no; no more,' said Captain
Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating; 'no more. There he lays, all his days--'

Mr Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, 'In the Bays
of Biscay, O!' which so affected the good Captain, as an appropriate
tribute to departed worth, that he shook him by the hand in
acknowledgment, and was fain to wipe his eyes.

'Well, well!' said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby
ceased to ring and vibrate in the skylight. 'Affliction sore, long time
he bore, and let us overhaul the wollume, and there find it.'

'Physicians,' observed Bunsby, 'was in vain.'

'Ay, ay, to be sure,' said the Captain, 'what's the good o' them in two
or three hundred fathoms o' water!' Then, returning to the letter, he
read on:--'"But if he should be by, when it is opened;"' the Captain
involuntarily looked round, and shook his head; '"or should know of it
at any other time;"' the Captain shook his head again; '"my blessing on
him! In case the accompanying paper is not legally written, it matters
very little, for there is no one interested but you and he, and my plain
wish is, that if he is living he should have what little there may be,
and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you should have it, Ned. You
will respect my wish, I know. God bless you for it, and for all your
friendliness besides, to Solomon Gills." Bunsby!' said the Captain,
appealing to him solemnly, 'what do you make of this? There you sit, a
man as has had his head broke from infancy up'ards, and has got a new
opinion into it at every seam as has been opened. Now, what do you make
o' this?'

'If so be,' returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, 'as he's dead,