“I like that,” said I; and I did; but I detested myself for the tears my words had drawn, and I prepared to die for them.

“They’ll kill you, Mr. Cole!”

“It would serve me right; but we’ll see about it.”

And I stood with my revolver very ready in my right hand, while with the other I caught poor Eva to my side, even as a door flew open, and Rattray himself burst upon us, a lantern in his hand, and the perspiration shining on his handso me face in its light.

I can see him now as he stood dumfounded


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kept to myself: the condition of the dead mate’s fingers: the cries that the sight of them had recalled.

“That Portuguese villain again!” cried my companion, fairly leaping from the chair which I had left and he had taken. “It was the work of the same cane that killed the steward. Don’t tell me an


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