,
as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty.
Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy for
drawing."

The Lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming nonchalance.

"What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to perish?"

"Confound you, sir! If you will have plain English, here it is. I tell
you I heard the child's skull crack like an egg-shell! There, let's
talk no more about it, or the whole matter. It's a bad business, and
I'm not answerable for it, or you either; so let's go and do what we
are answerable for, and identify--"

"Sir! you will be so good as to recollect," said the Lieutenant, with
ruffled plumes.

"I do; I do! I beg your pardon a thousand times, I'm sure, for being
so rude: but you know as well as I, sir, there are a good many things
in the world which won't stand too much thinking over; and last night
was one."

"Very true, very true; but how did you get ashore?"

"I get ashore? Oh, well enough! Why not?"

"'Gad, sir, you were near enough being drowned at last; only that
girl's pluck saved you."

"Well; but it did save me: and here I am, as I knew I should be when I
first struck out from the ship."

"Knew!--that is a bold word for mortal man at sea."

"I suppose it is: but we doctors, you see, get into the way of looking
at things as men of science; and the ground of science is experience;
and, to judge from experience, it takes more to kill me than I have
yet met with. If I had been going to be snuffed out, it would have
happened long ago."

"Hum! It's well to carry a cheerful heart; but the pitcher goes often
to the well, and comes home broken at last."

"I must be a gutta-percha pitcher, I think, then, or else--

"'There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft,' etc.

as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir," continued the
stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed to escape from
the malady of thought. "I don't want to boast, sir; I only want
to show you that I have some practical reason for wearing as my
motto--'Never say die.' I have had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack
beside: five several times I have had bullets through me; I have been
bayoneted and left for dead; I have been shipwrecked three times--and
once, as now, I was the only man who escaped; I have been fatted by
savages for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends
only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow