f at the knee, he was loose-jointed and
ungainly, and he had one of the most villanous countenances that it was
ever my fortune to look into. I could also see that he, like many of the
others, had been drinking. It was very plain that he was a great
favorite amongst the rest, for they made room for him and took all his
curses and many blows, which he gave with his crutch, without either
answering him or striving to defend themselves. Even the fellow who had
spoken so boldly to the captain's face, and whom I afterwards found to
be the chief of the "lords," as they are pleased to call those in
authority amongst them, grinned and stood aside as the villanous cripple
came and leaned over me.

"D--n you," says he, "and is it you, Jack Mackra? Then I have a score to
pay you that has stood on the slate for this many a day."

He turned me over upon my face with his crutch, and the next moment I
felt the cords that tied my hands give way, and knew that they had been
cut, then my legs and feet were loosened from their lashings, and I was
a free man. I heard the fellow say, "Get up!" whereupon I stood upon my
feet and gazed about me, though my brain still swam, and all things
appeared blurred and distorted to my sight, the sky and the sea and the
faces around me being all strangely mingled together. Then presently,
as my confusion began to fade away from me, I heard the one-legged man
speaking to me.

"And do you know who I am?" said he.

"No," says I, at last gathering my wits to speak; "I cannot bring you to
mind."

"Why," says he, "don't you remember Jimmy Ward, the cook aboard the
_Pembroke Castle_--him as you saved from five drunken Spanish devils
over at Honduras? Hey? don't you mind how they had me down under the
table, jabbing at me with their d--d snickershees and swearing that they
would cut the living heart out of me? If it hadn't been for you, it
would have been all over with Jimmy Ward at that time." He waited for an
answer, but as yet I could say nothing. "Well, I haven't forgot it if
you have," he continued; "I owe you a good turn, and I'll pay it if I
have to bleed for it."

Just then up steps the fellow who had faced England so boldly a moment
or two before. "Come, come, Jimmy," says he, "a joke's a joke, and I can
laugh as loud as any; but here's a man has done us more damage than
anybody we've fell in with since we ran foul of the _Eagle_."

"Hang him up!" Hang him up!" sang out several of those who stoo