hat my
abstaining had excited his suspicions.

"If you like, I will smoke," said I, setting to work to manufacture a
cigar like his own.

He sat eying me all the while; and when I proceeded to fill it with
tobacco, he leaned over to see that I did not attempt any sleight of
hand to deceive him.

"Will that do?" said I, showing him the little paper tube.

"Smoke," said he, gravely.

It was only after watching me for several minutes that he took courage
to venture himself; and even then he scrutinized the tobacco as keenly
as though it demanded all his acuteness to prevent stratagem. At length
he did begin; and certainly never did anything seem to effect a more
powerful and more immediate influence. The fiery, restless eyes grew
heavy and dull; the wide-distended nostrils ceased to dilate with their
former convulsive motion. His cheek, seamed with privation and passion,
lay flaccid and at rest, and a look of lethargic ease stole over all the
features one by one, till at last the head fell forward on his
chest, his arm slipped softly from beneath him, and he rolled heavily
back,--sunk in the deepest sleep.

I soon abandoned my tobacco now, which had already begun to produce
a feeling of giddiness and confusion very unfavorable to cool
determination,--sensations which did not subside so readily as I could
have wished; for as I sat gazing on my swarthy companion, fancies the
wildest and most absurd associated themselves with the strange reality.
The terrible tales I once listened to about the "Black Boatswain"
came to mingle with the present. The only remnant of right reason left
prompted me to keep up my fire; a certain terror of being alone and in
the dark with the negro predominating over every other thought.

By the bright blaze, which soon arose, I could now mark the enormous
figure, which, in all the abandonment of heavy slumber, lay outstretched
before me. Although it was evident he was very old, the gigantic limbs
showed what immense strength he must have possessed; while in the
several white cicatrices that marked his flesh, I could reckon a great
number of wounds, some of them of fearful extent. The only covering he
wore was a piece of sailcloth wrapped round his body; over this he had
a blanket, through a round hole in which his head issued, like as in
a Mexican poncho, leaving his sinewy limbs perfectly naked. A bit of
ragged, worn bunting--part, as it seemed, of an old union-jack--was
bound round his he