the nether bank. I did, by the keys of St. Peter!
Wessenburg's Pandours would tell you whether Decimus Saxon could
swim. Take my advice, young men, and always carry your tobacco in a
water-tight metal box.'

As he spoke he drew a flat box from his pocket, and several wooden
tubes, which he screwed together to form a long pipe. This he stuffed
with tobacco, and having lit it by means of a flint and steel with a
piece of touch-paper from the inside of his box, he curled his legs
under him in Eastern fashion, and settled down to enjoy a smoke. There
was something so peculiar about the whole incident, and so preposterous
about the man's appearance and actions, that we both broke into a roar
of laughter, which lasted until for very exhaustion we were compelled
to stop. He neither joined in our merriment nor expressed offence at
it, but continued to suck away at his long wooden tube with a perfectly
stolid and impassive face, save that the half-covered eyes glinted
rapidly backwards and forwards from one to the other of us.

'You will excuse our laughter, sir,' I said at last; 'my friend and I
are unused to such adventures, and are merry at the happy ending of it.
May we ask whom it is that we have picked up?'

'Decimus Saxon is my name,' the stranger answered; 'I am the tenth child
of a worthy father, as the Latin implies. There are but nine betwixt me
and an inheritance. Who knows? Small-pox might do it, or the plague!'

'We heard a shot aboard of the brig,' said Reuben.

'That was my brother Nonus shooting at me,' the stranger observed,
shaking his head sadly.

'But there was a second shot.'

'Ah, that was me shooting at my brother Nonus.'

'Good lack!' I cried. 'I trust that thou hast done him no hurt.'

'But a flesh wound, at the most,' he answered. 'I thought it best to
come away, however, lest the affair grow into a quarrel. I am sure that
it was he who trained the nine-pounder on me when I was in the water.
It came near enough to part my hair. He was always a good shot with a
falconet or a mortar-piece. He could not have been hurt, however, to get
down from the poop to the main-deck in the time.'

There was a pause after this, while the stranger drew a long knife from
his belt, and cleaned out his pipe with it. Reuben and I took up our
oars, and having pulled up our tangled fishing-lines, which had been
streaming behind the boat, we proceeded to pull in towards the land.

'The question now is,' said the st