"Have _you_ sich a thing as a chaw about ye?" he asked in tremulous accents. "I'm _that_ done; never a drop has passed my lips for three days, strike me dead; and I'd give anything for a chaw o' tobacco. A sup of drink you have _not_ got, Capt'n Hymn-book, axing your pardon for the liberty?" "William," I said, "even in this benighted island, you set a pitiful example. You have been drinking, sir; you are reaping what you have sown; and only temperance, strict, undeviating total abstinence rather, can restore your health." "So help me!" cried the wretched man, "except a drop of Pramneian {76} I took, the morning I cut and run,--and that was three days ago,--nothing stronger than castor-oil berries have crossed my lips. It ain't that, sir; it ain't the drink. It's--it's the Thargeelyah. Next week, sir, they are going to roast us--you and me--flog us first, and roast us after. Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" VII. FLIGHT. "Flog us first, and roast us afterwards." I repeated mechanically the words of William Bludger. "Why, you must be mad; they are more likely to fall down and worship us,--_me_ at any rate." "No, Capt'n," replied William; "that's your mistake. They say we're both Catharmata; that's what they call us; and you're no better than me." "And what are Catharmata?" I inquired, remembering that this word, or something like it, had been constantly used by the natives in my hearing. "Well, Capt'n, it means, first and foremost, just the off-scourings of creation, the very dust and sweepings of the shop," answered Bludger, who had somehow regained his confidence. To have a fellow-sufferer, and to see the pallor which, doubtless, overspread my features, was a source of comfort to this hardened man. At the same time I confess that, if William Bludger alone had been destined to suffer, I could have contemplated the decree with Christian resignation. "I speak the beggars' patter pretty well now," Bludger went on; "and I see Catharmata means more than just mere dirt. It means two unlucky devils." "William?" I exclaimed. "It means, saving your presence, two poor coves, as has no luck, like you and me, and that can be got rid of once a year, at an entertainment they call the Thargeelyah, I dunno why, a kind o' friendly lead. They choose fellows as either behaves ill, or has no friends to make a fuss about them, and they gives them three dozen, or more, and takes them down to the beach, and burns them alive over a slow fire. And then they toss the ashes out to sea, and think all the bad luck goes away with the tide. Oh, I never was in such a hole as this!" Bludger's words made me shudder. I had never forgotten the hideous sacrifice, doubtless the Thargeelyah, as they called it, that greeted me when I was first cast ashore on the island. To think that I had only been saved that I might figure as a victim of some of their heathen gods!