"Alas, no," replied he; "it had been better if I had. I mean that I
feel kindly towards you, for having bound up my wound, and would do
anything for you if I had the power. It means, that if I had my
eyesight, as I had a week ago, and was master, as I then was, that I
would not kick nor beat you, but be kind to you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," replied I, "I think I do; and if you tell me all I want to
know I shall believe you."

"That I will as soon as I am well enough; but now I am too ill--you
must wait a day or two, till the fever has left me."

Satisfied with Jackson's promise, I tended him carefully, and washed
and dressed his wound for the two following days. He said that he
felt himself much better, and his language to me was so kind and
conciliatory, that I hardly knew what to make of it; but this is
certain, that it had a good effect upon me, and gradually the hatred
and ill-will that I bore to him wore off, and I found myself handling
him tenderly, and anxious not to give him more pain than was
necessary, yet without being aware that I was prompted by better
feelings. It was on the third morning that he said,--

"I can talk to you now; what do you want to know?"

"I want to know the whole story of how we came to this island, who
my father and mother were, and why you said that you hated me and my
name?"

"That," said Jackson, after a silence of a few minutes, "will take
some time. I could soon tell it you if it were not for the last