e coarse viands that were served out to the ship's company.

Strictland was with me whenever he could be spared from his regular
duties, and gave me encouragement and aid. But I could not conceal from
myself that my illness was becoming a serious matter. I accidentally
heard two or three of the crew conversing about my sickness one day,
and, to my great consternation, they came to the conclusion that I was
rapidly sinking, and they would soon be rid of my company.

"Yaw," muttered in thick guttural tones a thick-headed Dutchman, who had
manifested towards me particular dislike, "in one or TWO days more,
at farthest, we shall help to carry him ashore in a wooden box." And a
pleasant smile for a moment lighted up his ugly features.

"You lie, you heartless vagabond!" I exclaimed, giving a loose to my
indignation; "you won't get rid of me so easily as you think. I
will live and laugh at you yet, were it only to disappoint your
expectations."

Nevertheless, the opinion which my unsympathizing shipmates thus
volunteered came over me like an electric shock. It sounded in my
ears like a sentence of death. I crawled along the lower deck into the
forecastle, and from the bottom of my chest took a small looking-glass
which I had not used for weeks. I saw the reflection of my features,
and started back aghast. The transformation was appalling. The uncombed
locks, the sunken eyes, the pallid, fleshless cheeks, the sharp
features, and the anxious, agonized expression caused by continual pain,
all seemed to have been suddenly created by the spell of some malignant
enchanter. I did not venture to take a second look, and no longer
wondered at the gloomy prediction of my companions.

The next day I found myself growing worse, and the pain increasing; and,
notwithstanding my determination to recover and falsify the prediction
of my unfeeling shipmates, I should undoubtedly have followed the dark
path which thousands of my young countrymen, sick and neglected in a
foreign land, had trod before, had I not received aid from an unexpected
quarter. I was crawling along the main deck, near the gangway, when Mr.
Parker, the supercargo, came on board. As he stepped over the gunwale,
my appearance, fortunately for me, arrested his attention. He inquired
my name, examined my condition, and seemed greatly shocked at the brutal
neglect I had experienced. He told me to be of good courage; that it was
not yet too late to arrest the progress of my