stible
longing to call him Friday, and introduce myself to him as R. Crusoe,
Esq.; but when I looked at his pale face and hands swathed in huge
bandages, I concluded it to be an ill time for any joking. After a day
or two's rest and unceasing attention to his wounds on my part, I was
pleased to find him greatly improved both in body and spirits, and
therefore felt that I might ask him a little about himself. What
information he gave me I will here epitomise.

He was by name Alexander Ducas, a son of France, his native village
being situate on the Bay of Avranches, facing Jersey. He was about my
own age, but had seen more ups and downs than most men of double his
years. He had been in the French navy; had been mate of several vessels;
had also taken charge of several English yachts; had been skipper of two
or three small trading vessels, and finally had become owner and skipper
of the little ketch which had met with such a disastrous end a few days
before. This was not the first nor the second time he had narrowly
escaped death by drowning; but as he afterwards told me, "he thought he
had done with the _surface_ of the water," and probably had I not
opportunely been on the spot, he would have shared the fate of his
poor crew, none of whose bodies were ever seen again.

[Illustration: RESCUE OF ALEC DUCAS.]

"Why did you throw overboard your water barrel life preserver; before
you clutched my rope," I asked him.

"A double chance," he replied, "for if the rope business had failed, I
might still have secured the aid of the barrels to support me. A poor
chance I allow, but a _chance_ nevertheless."

He was of medium height, fair, with sandy moustache, compactly knit, and
of surprising strength for a man of his inches. I afterwards found that
he was possessed with more than an ordinary amount of physical
endurance, for no matter how much work he crowded into a long summer's
day, he was always as blithe as a cricket when work was over, and we sat
by the old cannon to smoke an evening pipe and chat together about our
plans and prospects.

Strange to say, he knew the man I buried at sea some months before, in
fact, had sailed with him on one vessel for several months, and he
moreover gave him a very bad character. It appears that he was a most
desperate fellow, having been in prison on several occasions for violent
conduct, and was noted for his brutal language and bad behaviour. He had
been turned out of the French navy