"Hullo!" suddenly cried the speaker, whom I had recognized as William
Bludger, one of the most depraved and regardless of the whole wicked crew
of the Blackbird,--"hullo, if here isn't old Captain Hymn-book!"--a
foolish nickname the sailors had given me.

He was obviously more than half-drunk, and carried in his hand a black
rum-bottle, probably (from all I knew of him) not nearly full. His shirt
and trousers were torn and dripping; apparently he had been washed
ashore, like myself, after the storm, and had been found and brought into
the town by some of the fishing population.

What a blow to all my hopes was the wholly unlooked-for arrival of this
tipsy, irreclaimable seaman, this unawakened Bill Bludger! I had framed
an ideal of what my own behaviour, in my trying circumstances, ought to
be. Often had I read how these islanders possess a tradition that a
wonderful white man, a being all sweetness and lucidity, landed in their
midst, taught them the knowledge of the arts, converted them to peace and
good manners, and at last mysteriously departed, promising that he would
return again. I had hopes--such things have happened--that the islanders
might take me for this wonderful white man of their traditions, come back
according to his promise. If this delusion should occur, I would not at
once undeceive them, but take advantage of the situation, and so bring
them all into the Bungletonian fold. I knew there was no time to waste.
Lutheran, French, or Church of England schemers, in schooners, might even
now be approaching the island, with their erroneous and deplorable
tenets. Again, I had reckoned, if my hopes proved false, on attaining,
not without dignity, the crown of the proto-martyr of my Connection.
Beyond occasional confinement in police cells, consequent on the
strategic manoeuvres of the Salvation Army, none of us had ever known