s. Indeed, the
sole superiority of Oberlus over the tortoises was his possession of a
larger capacity of degradation; and along with that, something like an
intelligent will to it. Moreover, what is about to be revealed, perhaps
will show, that selfish ambition, or the love of rule for its own sake,
far from being the peculiar infirmity of noble minds, is shared by
beings which have no mind at all. No creatures are so selfishly
tyrannical as some brutes; as any one who has observed the tenants of
the pasture must occasionally have observed.

"This island's mine by Sycorax my mother," said Oberlus to himself,
glaring round upon his haggard solitude. By some means, barter or
theft--for in those days ships at intervals still kept touching at his
Landing--he obtained an old musket, with a few charges of powder and
ball. Possessed of arms, he was stimulated to enterprise, as a tiger
that first feels the coming of its claws. The long habit of sole
dominion over every object round him, his almost unbroken solitude, his
never encountering humanity except on terms of misanthropic
independence, or mercantile craftiness, and even such encounters being
comparatively but rare; all this must have gradually nourished in him a
vast idea of his own importance, together with a pure animal sort of
scorn for all the rest of the universe.

The unfortunate Creole, who enjoyed his brief term of royalty at
Charles's Isle was perhaps in some degree influenced by not unworthy
motives; such as prompt other adventurous spirits to lead colonists into
distant regions and assume political preeminence over them. His summary
execution of many of his Peruvians is quite pardonable, considering the
desperate characters he had to deal with; while his offering canine
battle to the banded rebels seems under the circumstances altogether
just. But for this King Oberlus and what shortly follows, no shade of
palliation can be given. He acted out of mere delight in tyranny and
cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited from Sycorax his
mother. Armed now with that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thought
of being master of that horrid isle, he panted for a chance to prove his
potency upon the first specimen of humanity which should fall
unbefriended into his hands.

Nor was he long without it. One day he spied a boat upon the beach, with
one man, a negro, standing by it. Some distance off was a ship, and
Oberlus immediately knew how matters stood. The