for that purpose, he could not have done anything more calculated to
make the poor wretch's last moments happy.

"Oh, Massa!" he kept on whispering, "too-much-fine room. You plenty-much
good for let me lib for die heah." And then he would relapse into
barbaric chatterings more native to his taste, and fitting to his
condition.

Captain Kettle played his parts as nurse and warder with grave
attention. He sat perspiring in his shirt sleeves, writing at the table
whenever for a moment or two he had a spell of rest; and his screed grew
rapidly. He was making verse, and it was under the stress of severe
circumstances like these that his Muse served him best.

The fetid air of the room throbbed with heat; the glow from the candle
lamp was a mere yellow flicker; and the Portuguese, who cowered with
twitching fingers in the bunk, was quite ready to murder him at the
slightest opening: it was not a combination of circumstances which would
have inspired many men.

Morning came, with a shiver and a chill, and with the first flicker of
dawn, the last spark of the negro's life went out. Kettle nodded to the
ghastly face as though it had been an old friend. "You seemed to like
being made use of," he said. "Well, daddy, I hope you have served your
turn. If your skipper hasn't got the plague in his system now, I shall
think God's forgotten this bit of Africa entirely."

He stood up, gathered his papers, slung the spruce white drill coat over
his arm, and unlocked the door. "Captain Rabeira," he said, "you have my
full permission to resume your occupation of going to the deuce your own