perceived he understood me, and
said very faintly in English, but with a true French accent, "This is a
hard bed, sir."

"I'll speedily mend that," said I, and at once fetched a mattress from
the cabin next mine; this I placed beside him, and dragged him on to it,
he very weakly assisting. I then brought clothes and rugs to cover him
with, and made him a high pillow, and as he lay close to the furnace he
could not have been snugger had he had a wife to tuck him up in his own
bed.

I was very much excited; my former terrors had vanished, but my awe
continued great, for I felt as if I had wrought a miracle, and I
trembled as a man would who surveys some prodigy of his own creation. It
was yet to be learnt how long he had been in this condition; but I was
perfectly sure he had formed one of the schooner's people, and as I had
guessed her to have been here for upwards of fifty years, the notion of
that man having lain torpid for half a century held me under a perpetual
spell of astonishment; but there was no more horror in me nor fright. He
followed me about with his eyes but did not offer to speak; perhaps he
could not. I put a lump of ice into the kettle, and when the water
boiled made him a pint of steaming brandy punch, which I held to his
lips in a pannikin whilst I supported his back with my knee; he supped
it slowly and painfully but with unmistakable relish, and fetched a sigh
of contentment as he lay back. But he would need something more
sustaining than brandy and water; and as I guessed his stomach, after so
prodigious a fast, would be too weak to support such solids as beef or
pork or bacon, I mused a little, turning over in my mind the contents of
the larder (as I call it), all which time he eyed me with bewilderment
growing in his face; and I then thought I could not do better than
manufacture him a broth of oatmeal, wine, bruised biscuit, and a piece
of tongue minced very small.

This did not take me long in doing, the tongue being near the furnace
and soft enough for the knife, and there was nothing to melt but the
wine. When the broth was ready I kneeled as before and fed him. He ate
greedily, and when the broth was gone looked as if he would have been
glad for more.

"Now, sir," says I, "sleep if you can;" with which he turned his head
and in a few minutes was sound asleep, breathing regularly and deeply.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PIRATE'S STORY.

It was now time to think of myself. The watch sho