(continued)

"If ever you can get aboard again, says you?" he repeated.  "Why, now, who's to hinder you?"

"Not you, I know," was my reply.

"And right you was," he cried.  "Now you—what do you call yourself, mate?"

"Jim," I told him.

"Jim, Jim," says he, quite pleased apparently.  "Well, now, Jim, I've lived that rough as you'd be ashamed to hear of.  Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had had a pious mother—to look at me?" he asked.

"Why, no, not in particular," I answered.

"Ah, well," said he, "but I had—remarkable pious.  And I was a civil, pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism that fast, as you couldn't tell one word from another.  And here's what it come to, Jim, and it begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones!  That's what it begun with, but it went further'n that;  and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman!  But it were Providence that put me here.  I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and I'm back on piety.  You don't catch me tasting rum so much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have.  I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way to.  And, Jim"—looking all round him and lowering his voice to a whisper—"I'm rich."

I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face, for he repeated the statement hotly:  "Rich!  Rich!  I says.  And I'll tell you what:  I'll make a man of you, Jim.  Ah, Jim, you'll bless your stars, you will, you was the first that found me!"

And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes.

"Now, Jim, you tell me true:  that ain't Flint's ship?" he asked.

At this I had a happy inspiration.  I began to believe that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once.

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