"How did I know as you was Martin? Why, bless your innocent heart, I knowed it all along of course. How d'ye think I wouldn't know that? Why, I no sooner saw you there among them rocks than I says to myself, 'Hullo,' says I, bless my eyes if that ain't Martin looking at my cows, as I calls 'em. Of course I knowed as you was Martin." "And what made you go and live in the sea, Old--Bill?" questioned Martin, "and why did you grow so big?" [Illustration: ] "Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the giant, blowing a great cloud of spray from his lips. "I don't mind telling you that. You see, Martin, I ain't pressed for time. Them blessed bells is nothing to me now, not being in the foc'sle trying to git a bit of a snooze. Well, to begin, I were born longer ago than I can tell in a old town by the sea, and my father he were a sailor man, and was drowned when I were very small; then my mother she died just becoz every man that belonged to her was drowned. For those as lives by the sea, Martin, mostly dies in the sea. Being a orphan I were brought up by Granny. I were very small then, and used to go and play all day in the marshes, and I loved the cows and water-rats and all the little beasties, same as you, Martin. When I were a bit growed Granny says to me one day, 'Bill, you go to sea and be a sailor-boy,' she says, 'becoz I've had a dream,' she says, 'and it's wrote that you'll never git drowned.' For you see, Martin, my Granny were a wise woman. So to the sea I goes, and boy and man, I was on a many voyages to Turkey and Injy and the Cape and the West Coast and Ameriky, and all round the world forty times over. Many and many's the time I was shipwrecked and overboard, but I never got drowned. At last, when I were gitting a old man, and not much use by reason of the rheumatiz and stiffness in the jints, there was a mutiny in our ship when we was off the Cape; and the captain and mate they was killed. Then comes my turn, becoz I went again the men, d'ye see, and they wasn't a-going for to pardon me that. So out they had me on deck and began to talk about how they'd finish me--rope, knife, or bullet. 'Mates,' says I 'shoot me if you like and I'll dies comforbly; or run a knife into me, which is better still; or string me up to the yard-arm, which is the most comforble thing I know. But don't you go and put me into the sea,' says I, 'becoz it's wrote that I ain't never going to git drowned, and you'll have all your trouble for nothing,' says I. That made 'em larf a most tremenjous larf. 'Old Bill,' says they, 'will have his little joke.' Then they brings up some iron stowed in the hold, and with ropes and chains they ties well-nigh half a ton of it to my legs and arms, then lowers me over the side. Down I wrent, in course, which made 'em larf louder than afore; and I were fathoms and fathoms under water afore I stopped hearing them larf. At last I comes down to the bottom of the sea, and glad I were to git there, becoz now I couldn't go no further.