CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE LAST OF HUGGERMUGGER.


Mr. Scrawler now thought it was time for him to speak. He had only
refrained from communicating to Huggermugger what the dwarf had told
him, from the fear of making the poor giant more unhappy and ill than
ever. But he saw that he could be silent no longer, for there seemed
to be a suspicion in Huggermugger's mind, that it might be these very
people, in whose ship he had consented to go, who had found out and
revealed his secret.

Mr. Scrawler then related to the giant what the dwarf had told him in
the garden, and about the concealed MS., and the prophecy it
contained.

Huggermugger sunk his head in his hands, and said: "Ah, the dwarf--the
dwarf! Fool that I was; I might have known it. His race always hated
mine. Ah, wretch! that I had punished thee as thou deservest!

"But, after all, what matters it?" he added, "I am the last of my
race. What matters it, if I die a little sooner than I thought? I have
little wish to live, for I should have been very lonely in my island.
Better it is it that I go to other lands--better, perhaps, that I die
here ere reaching land.