im.

"'I don't blame you for your suspicions,' he cried, moodily, seating
himself by the fire again, and holding his hands towards the blaze to
dry his ragged shirt. 'I am defenceless, and you hold a loaded gun.
Discharge its contents into my body, and then go and obtain a full
pardon from government for the murder of Black Darnley.'

"He bowed his head and sat scowling at the fire, as though he cared not
what became of him, and was rather anxious, than otherwise, that I
should end his career of crime.

"'I'll trust you,' I said, replacing my gun over the bed and taking a
seat beside him, and I did so with perfect confidence.

"'Your clothes are wet and ragged,' I remarked, after a few moments'
silence, during which he did not remove his eyes from the fire.

"'A starving man cares but little about his dress,' he answered,
glancing over his ragged suit, and stooping to wipe the gravel from his
bloody feet.

"'You shall have all that you want to eat,' I answered; and I hastily
put a kettle of water upon the fire to make him a cup of tea, and then
laid upon the table nearly the whole carcass of a lamb which I had
roasted that day. He still sat by the fire and gazed at the flames as
though he read his past life amid the coals that glowed upon the
hearth, and was trying to read the future. I went to my small stock of
clothing and took out a flannel shirt and pair of trousers, much the
worse for wear, but still warm and dry.

"'Strip off your wet garments," I said, 'and accept of these.'

"He started, and looked me full in the face, as though reading my
thoughts.

"'I have wronged you,' he cried, while doing as I directed. 'I thought
when I proposed to take the ship, that you were a coward, because you
refused to join me. You are a braver man than myself.'

"'It was because I knew that certain death not only awaited you and I,
but half of those who were not aware of the plot. The innocent and
guilty would have been massacred without mercy by our taskmasters.'

"'But we could have slain half a dozen of them before dying ourselves,'
he exclaimed, with a touch of his old fierceness, and a wave of his long
arms, as though, even then, weak as he was, he would like to strangle
his oppressors. I made no reply, but assisted him to dress; and after he
had squeezed his body into my clothes, which were two sizes too small
for him, the water on the fire boiled, and I made a strong cup of tea,
and then bade him eat to repleti