overs for the ears, and a big flap behind
that fell to below his collar, and was almost as long as his hair. He
wanted but a couple of muskets and an umbrella to closely resemble
Robinson Crusoe, as he is made to figure in most of the cuts I have
seen. He produced a pipe of the Dutch pattern, with a bowl carved into a
death's head, and great enough to hold a cake of tobacco. The skull
might have been a child's for size, and though it was dyed with tobacco
juice and the top blackened, with the live coals which had been held to
it, it was so finely carved that it looked very ghastly and terribly
real in his hand as he sat puffing at it.

He eyed me steadfastly whilst he smoked, as if critically taking stock
of me, and presently said, "The devil hath an odd way of ordering
matters. What particular merit have _I_ that I should have been the one
hit upon by you to thaw? Had you brought any one of the others to, he
would have advised you against reviving us, and so I should have passed
out of my frosty sleep into death as quietly, ay, and as painlessly, as
that puff of smoke melts into clear air."

"Then perhaps you do not think you are obliged by my awakening you to
life?" said I.

"Yes, my friend, I am much obliged," said he with vivacity. "Any fool
can die. To live is the true business of life. Mark what you do: you
make me know tobacco again, you enable me to eat and drink, and these
things are pleasures which were denied me in that cabin there. You
recall me to the enjoyment of my gains, nay, of more--of my own and the
gains of our company. You make me, as you make yourself, a rich man; the
world opens before me anew, and very brilliantly--to be sure, I am
obliged."

"The world is certainly before you, as it is before me," said I, "but
that's all; we have got to get there."

He flourished his pipe, and 'twas like the flight of Death through the
gloomy fire-tinctured air.

"That must come. We are two. Yesterday you were one, and I can
understand your despair. But these arms--stupor has not wasted so much
as the dark line of a finger-nail of muscle. You too are no girl.
Courage! between us we shall manage. How long is it since you sailed
from England?"

"We sailed last month a year from the Thames for Callao."

"And what is the news?" said he, taking a pannikin of wine from the oven
and sipping it. "Last year! 'Tis twelve years since I was in Paris and
three years since we had news from Europe."

News! thought