nd his helpless master.

* * * * *

For three miserable days I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded,
in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce West
Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry, burning sun sank in
the west, like a red hot shield of iron. I glared on the noble dog as he
lay at the bottom of the boat, and would have torn at his throat with my
teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood; but as he
turned his dull, gray, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart
stopped, and I fell senseless.

When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain
leaves, in a low, smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me,
whining and licking my hands and face. Underneath the joists, that bound
the rafters of the roof together, lay a corpse, wrapped in a boatsail,
on which was clumsily written with charcoal, "The body of John Deadeye,
Esq., late commander of his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch."

There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his
shirt and trousers, drenched, unshorn, and death-like, was roasting a
joint of meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian sat opposite to him fanning the
flame with a palm-leaf. I had been nourished during my delirium; for the
fierceness of my sufferings were assuaged, and I was comparatively
strong. I anxiously inquired of the lieutenant the fate of our
shipmates.

"All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and
our four-footed friend there, I should not have been here to have told
it. All that the sharks have left of the captain and five seamen came
ashore last night. I have buried the poor fellows on the beach where
they lay, as well as I could, with an oar-blade for a shovel, and the
_bronze ornament_ there," pointing to the Indian, "for an assistant."

_II.--Perils on Land_

I was awakened by the low growling and short bark of the dog. The night
was far spent, and the amber rays of the yet unrisen sun were shooting
up in the east.

"That's a musket shot," said the lieutenant. The Indian crept to the
door, and placed his open palms behind his ears. The distant wail of a
bugle was heard, then three or four dropping shots again, in rapid
succession. Mr. Splinter stooped to go forth, but the Indian caught him
by the leg, uttering the single word "Espanoles" (Spaniards).

On the instant a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in