kled
oysters; a rich, mellow-looking pair of dark-brown eyes, with large bushy
eyebrows meeting above the nose, which latter feature was a little "on
the snub and off the Roman;" his mouth was thick-lipped, and had
that peculiar mobility which seems inseparable wherever eloquence or
imagination predominate; in color, his face was of that uniform
hue painters denominate as "warm, "--in fact, a rich sunset
Claude-Lorrainish tint that seemed a compound, the result of
high-seasoned meats, plethora, punch, and the tropics; in figure, he was
like a huge pudding-bag, supported on two short little dumpy pillars,
that from a sense of the superincumbent weight had wisely spread
themselves out below, giving to his lower man the appearance of a
stunted letter A; his arms were most preposterously short, and for the
convenience of locomotion he used them somewhat after the fashion of
fins. As to his costume on the morning in question, it was a singularly
dirty and patched dressing-gown of antique silk, fastened about the
waist by a girdle, from which depended a scymitar on one side and a
meerschaum on the other; a well-worn and not over clean-looking shawl
was fastened in fashion of a turban round his head; a pair of yellow
buskins with faded gold tassels decorated legs which occasionally peeped
from the folds of the _robe-de-chambre_ without any other covering.

[Illustration: Tom Receives a Strange Visitor 132]

Such was the outward man of him who suddenly stopped short at the
doorway, while he held the latch in his hand, and called out,--

"Burke, Tom Burke! don't be violent, don't be outrageous; you see I'm
armed! I'd cut you down without mercy if you attempt to lift a finger!
Promise me this,--do you hear me?"

That any one even unarmed could have conceived fear from such a poor
weak object as I was seemed so utterly absurd that I laughed outright;
an emotion on my part that seemingly imparted but little confidence
to my friend the captain, who retreated still closer to the door, and
seemed ready for flight. The first use I could make of speech, however,
was, to assure him that I was not only perfectly calm and sensible, but
deeply grateful for kindness which I knew not how, nor to whom, I became
indebted.

"Don't roll your eyes there; don't look so damned treacherous!" said
he. "Keep down your hands; keep them under the bedclothes. I 'll put a
bullet through your skull if you stirred!"

I again protested that any manifes