day!"

Now, I knew Drooce had always borne particularly hard on this man, and I
knew this man to be of a very hot temper: so, I said:

"Tut, nonsense! don't talk so to me! If there's a man in the corps who
scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one."

Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he:

"I hope so, but I can't answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he
has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, Gill! Mark my
words! It will go hard with Sergeant Drooce, if ever we are in an
engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a
prayer then, if he knows one, for it's all over with him, and he is on
his Death-bed. Mark my words!"

I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be
taken down.

The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball, was, the gaiety and
attachment of Christian George King. The innocent spirits that Sambo
Pilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all
the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he
was of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and
death, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on
me. If ever a man, Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what
may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I
thought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was that
Sambo Pilot, Christian George King.

This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep,
cornerwise, and I couldn't get him out. He was always flitting about me,
dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed
off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really
was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut; which was made
of leaves, and had Charker's hammock slung in it as well as mine.

"So-Jeer!" says he, in a sort of a low croak. "Yup!"

"Hallo!" says I, starting up. "What? You _are_ there, are you?"

"Iss," says he. "Christian George King got news."

"What news has he got?"

"Pirates out!"

I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both aware that
Captain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the mainland
for a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us
what the signal was.

Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground. But,
the word w