dog, poor as he is we may make out to keep soul and body together, and to give the child the other matters.’—­So Guinea, he says, says he, ’I’ve no occasion for food at all; give ’em to the boy,’ says he, ’seeing that he is little, and has need of strength.’  Howsomever, master Harry took no great fancy to the dog, which we soon finished between us; for the plain reason that he was so thin.  After that, we had a hungry time of it ourselves; for, had we not kept up the life in the lad, you know, it would have slipt through our fingers.”

“And you fed the child, though fasting yourselves?”

“No, we wer’n’t altogether idle, my Lady, seeing that we kept our teeth jogging on the skin of the dog, though I will not say that the food was over savoury.  And then, as we had no occasion to lose time in eating, we kept the oars going so much the livelier.  Well, we got in at one of the islands after a time, though neither I nor the nigger had much to boast of as to strength or weight when we made the first kitchen we fell in with.”

“And the child?”

“Oh! he was doing well enough; for, as the doctors afterwards told us, the short allowance on which he was put did him no harm.”

“You sought his friends?”

“Why, as for that matter, my Lady, so far as I have been able to discover, he was with his best friends already.  We had neither chart nor bearings by which we knew how to steer in search of his family.  His name he called master Harry, by which it is clear he was a gentleman born, as indeed any one may see by looking at him; but not another word could I learn of his relations or country, except that, as he spoke the English language, and was found in an English ship, there is a natural reason to believe he is of English build himself.”

“Did you not learn the name of the ship?” demanded the attentive Rover, in whose countenance the traces of a lively interest were very distinctly discernible.

“Why, as to that matter, your Honour, schools were scarce in my part of the country; and in Africa, you know, there is no great matter of learning; so that, had her name been out of water, which it was not, we might have been bothered to read it.  Howsomever, there was a horse-bucket kicking about her decks, and which, as luck would have it, got jammed-in with the pumps in such a fashion that it did not go overboard until we took it with us.  Well, this bucket had a name painted on it; and, after we had leisure for the thing, I got Guinea, who has a natural turn at tattooing, to rub it into my arm in gunpowder, as the handiest way of logging these small particulars.  Your Honour shall see what the black has made of it.”

So saying, Fid very coolly doffed his jacket, and laid bare, to the elbow, one of his brawny arms, on which the blue impression was still very plainly visible Although the letters were rudely imitated, it was not difficult to read, in the skin, the words “Ark, of Lynnhaven.”