The door, a panelled mahogany one, which had evidently been once a portion of a large ship's cabin, was open; so the explorers advanced, and, on entering, beheld a very remarkable, and, indeed, appalling spectacle. CHAPTER XXVII. THE HERMIT. The western sun streamed into the humble hut through the open door, in a broad and yellow flake of light, that seemed to pierce like a solid body the almost palpable obscurity within; and where that flake of sunlight fell full in its glory, there lay, stretched on a bed of moss and dry leaves, an old man, who was too evidently in the last throes of death. He was clad in a species of long brown weed, which was fashioned like a friar's gown, but had a hood or tippet, formed of grass matting, and both were worn, torn, patched, and mended thriftily. A cord--a piece of common rope--girt his waist, and thereat hung a little wooden cross, formed, apparently, by himself, of twigs of the myrtle tied cruciform. His feet were bare, and, like his hands, they were shrivelled and attenuated, till every bone and muscle was painfully visible. His head was bald by age; his features seemed to have been noble and commanding, and a beard, bushy but dignified, and white as snow, flowed over his breast, and reached to his girdle. He was dying, whether of age, of illness, want of nourishment, or all these three combined, those who looked on him knew not. Livid hues were spreading over his face rapidly; his nose, which was fine and aquiline, became pinched and white at the point. As the visitors stooped over him, his eyes dilated, as if he were still partially sensible to external objects; but it was evident that sight had left him, and that the darkness of death was there. The hardships incident to a life of seclusion and mortification, such as his must have been on that lonely island, together with his wretched attire and venerable white beard, all served to make him seem a patriarch in years; but Bartelot supposed that he was not much over sixty. "He is sinking--dying' fast," said he, in a whisper, as he took off his hat, while an irresistible emotion of reverence and awe stole over him. "Outward bound, heaven help him! Goin' forren, and no mistake," said Noah Gawthrop, doffing his straw hat. "I've seen some poor cretturs like this, when I was in the Naval Brigade at Sebastypool. One was always a crossing ov hisself from stem to starn, and from port to starboard. Another was wot they calls a darvish--he was always a spinning of hisself like a peg-top, and shouting, 'Allar--Allar!' Now, I reckons this here's been a darvish o' some kind." "Had we come ashore this morning at the time I proposed, we might have saved him, Tom," said Morley, in a low tone, to Bartelot. The latter shook his head, and again the pupils of the glazing eyes dilated, as if the sufferer's ear had caught a passing sound.