books from his hands as he finished them. Sometimes, when we were
apparently at our last gasp, he would skip a whole page of moralizing,
or a bit of description; and always, as soon as he clearly foresaw the
_dénoûement_--which he generally did at about the middle of the second
volume--the work was handed over to us without a word of repining.

The effect of this diet was not unpleasant but remarkable. Physically,
it sustained us; mentally, it exalted us; morally, it made us but a
trifle worse than we were. We talked as no human beings ever talked
before. Our wit was polished but without point. As in a stage broadsword
combat, every cut has its parry, so in our conversation every remark
suggested the reply, and this necessitated a certain rejoinder. The
sequence once interrupted, the whole was bosh; when the thread was
broken the beads were seen to be waxen and hollow.

We made love to one another, and plotted darkly in the deepest obscurity
of the hold. Each set of conspirators had its proper listener at the
hatch. These, leaning too far over would bump their heads together and
fight. Occasionally there was confusion amongst them: two or more would
assert a right to overhear the same plot. I remember at one time the
cook, the carpenter, the second assistant-surgeon, and an able seaman
contended with handspikes for the honor of betraying my confidence. Once
there were three masked murderers of the second watch bending at the
same instant over the sleeping form of a cabin-boy, who had been heard
to mutter, a week previously, that he had "Gold! gold!" the accumulation
of eighty--yes, eighty--years' piracy on the high seas, while sitting as
M.P. for the borough of Zaccheus-cum-Down, and attending church
regularly. I saw the captain of the foretop surrounded by suitors for
his hand, while he was himself fingering the edge of a packing-case, and
singing an amorous ditty to a lady-love shaving at a mirror.