“The mother had given the only morsel of biscuit she had to the child, and was dying, in order that the urchin might live.  I never could get rightly into the meaning of the thing, my Lady, why a woman, who is no better than a Lascar in matters of strength, nor any better than a booby in respect of courage, should be able to let go her hold of life in this quiet fashion, when many a stout mariner would be fighting for each mouthful of air the Lord might see fit to give.  But there she was, white as the sail on which the storm has long beaten, and limber as a pennant in a calm, with her poor skinny arm around the lad, holding in her hand the very mouthful that might have kept her own soul in the body a little longer.”

“What did she, when you brought her to the light?”

“What did she!” repeated Fid, whose voice was getting thick and husky, “why, she did a d——­d honest thing; she gave the boy the crumb, and motioned as well as a dying woman could, that we should have an eye over him, till the cruise of life was up.”

“And was that all?”

“I have always thought she prayed; for something passed between her and one who was not to be seen, if a man might judge by the fashion in which her eyes were turned aloft, and her lips moved.  I hope, among others, she put in a good word for one Richard Fid; for certain she had as little need to be asking for herself as any body.  But no man will ever know what she said, seeing that her mouth was shut from that time for ever after.”

“She died!”

“Sorry am I to say it.  But the poor lady was past swallowing when she came into our hands, and then it was but little we had to offer her.  A quart of water, with mayhap a gill of wine, a biscuit, and a handful of rice, was no great allowance for two hearty men to pull a boat some seventy leagues within the tropics.  Howsomever, when we found no more was to be got from the wreck, and that, since the air had escaped by the hole we had cut, she was settling fast, we thought it best to get out of her:  and sure enough we were none too soon, seeing that she went under just as we had twitched our jolly-boat clear of the suction.”

“And the boy—­the poor deserted child!” exclaimed the governess, whose eyes had now filled to over-flowing.

“There you are all aback, my Lady.  Instead of deserting him, we brought him away with us, as we did the only other living creature to be found about the wreck.  But we had still a long journey before us, and, to make the matter worse, we were out of the track of the traders.  So I put it down as a case for a council of all hands, which was no more than I and the black, since the lad was too weak to talk and little could he have said otherwise in our situation.  So I begun myself, saying, says I, ’Guinea, we must eat either this here dog, or this here boy.  If we eat the boy, we shall be no better than the people in your own country, who, you know, my Lady, are cannibals; but if we eat the