nto blasphemy,
but on the contrary discovered an agony of religious horror.

I was much astonished and puzzled by this illness that had come upon
him, for, though he talked of darkness and faintness and of dying, he
continued to sit up on his bench and to take pulls at the can of brandy
I had handed to him. It might be, indeed, that a sudden faintness had
terrified him nearly out of his senses with a prospect of approaching
death; but that would not account for the peculiar note and appearance
of age that had entered his figure, face, and voice. Then an
extraordinary fancy occurred to me: Had the whole weight of the unhappy
wretch's years suddenly descended upon him? Or, if not wholly arrived,
might not these indications in him mark the first stages of a gradually
increasing pressure? The heat, the vivacity, the fierceness, spirits,
and temper of the life I had been instrumental in restoring to him
probably illustrated his character as it was eight-and-forty years
since; that had flourished artificially from the moment of his awakening
down to the present hour; but now the hand of Time was upon this man,
whose age was above an hundred. He might be decaying and wasting, even
as he sat there, into such an intellectual condition and physical aspect
as he would possess and submit had he come without a break into his
present age.

I was fascinated by the mystery of his vitality, and breathlessly
watched him as if I expected to witness some harlequin change in his
face and mark the transformation of his polished brow into the lean
austerity of wrinkles. His voice sank into a mere whisper at last, and
then, ceasing to speak altogether, he dropped his chin on to his bosom
and began to sway from side to side, catching himself from falling with
several paralytic starts, but without lifting his head or opening his
eyes that I could see, and manifesting every symptom of extreme
drowsiness.

I got up and laid my hand on his shoulder, on which he turned his face
and viewed me with one eye closed, the other scarce open.

"How are you feeling now?" said I.

"Sleepy, very sleepy," he answered.

"I'll put your mattress into your hammock," said I, "and the best thing
you can do is to go and turn in properly and get a long night's rest,
and to-morrow morning you'll feel yourself as hearty as ever."

He mumbled some answer which I interpreted to signify "Very well!" so I
shouldered his mattress and slung a lanthorn in his cabin, and