and put my arm up to fend it off; and gettin' the blow on my fore-arm,
it got broke acrost as quick as a wink, and I dropped. So they picked me
up, and havin' a mate aboard who knew some doctorin', I was spliced
and bound up, and put under hatches on the sick-list. I tell you I
was dog-tired them days, lyin' in my berth, hearin' the rats and mice
scuttle round the bulkheads and skitter over the floor. I couldn't do
nothin', and finally I bethought myself of Hetty's Bible and contrived
to get it out o' my chist,--and when I could get a bit of a glim I'd
read it. I'm a master-hand to remember things, and what I read over and
over in that 'are dog-hole of cabin never got clean out of my head, no,
nor never will; and when the Lord above calls all hands on deck to pass
muster, ef I'm ship-shape afore him, it'll be because I follered his
signals and l'arnt 'em out of that 'are log. But I didn't foller 'em
then, nor not for a plaguy long cruise yet!

"One day, as I laid there readin' by the light of a bit of tallow dip
the mate gave me, who should stick his head into the hole he called a
cabin, but old Twist! He'd got an idee I was shammin'; and when he saw
me with a book, he cussed, and swore, and raved, and finally hauled it
out o' my hand and flung it up through the hatchway clean and clear
overboard.

"I tell ye, Doctor, if I'd 'a' had a sound arm, he'd 'a' gone after it;
but I had to take it out in ratin' at him, and that night my mind was
made up; I was bound to desart at the first land. And it come about that
a fortnight after my arm had jined, and I could haul shrouds agin, we
sighted the Marquesas, and bein' near about out o' water, the cap'en
laid his course for the nearest land, and by daybreak of the second day
we lay to in a small harbor, on the south side of an island where
ships wa'n't very prompt to go commonly. But old Twist didn't care for