"What's that skirling like the curlew one moment, and grunting like a nine farrow pig the other? I say, friend, what kittles ye sae? Come here, my wee man, come here;" and raising himself in his hammock, he stared idly into my face, and then shook his head violently. "Heard ever any Christian the like o' that?" said the poor corporal; "hear till that," and he again walloped his _cabeza_ from side to side; "dinna ye hear hoo my brain is dried up and knotted in my _cranium_ by this vile fever? Safe us, it's a' into lumps like aitmeal in brose, and noo the lumps have hardened into a consistence like flint,--losh! how they rattle in my skull like chucky stanes in a wean's rash-basket!" Another shake of his head. "Ech, the very fire-sparks are fleeing from my ee. I wonder if they can be hardened ideas; at ony rate they have struck fire frae ilk ither. Do ye ken I could write poetry the noo--I'll be up and overboard, if you dinna haud me--I'll be up and overboard." Discreet even in his madness, he had given warning and time for the hint to be taken by his mess-mates, and he was now forcibly held down. As he lay back he continued to murmur, "Oh, puir Saunders Skelp, puir Saunders Skelp, that ye should hae gotten yer death-blow frae a bloody wee heathen god, and you the son of a minister's man--a godly bairn of the Reformation!" Then lifting his head, as if his own exclamation had startled him, "Saunders Skelp--wha ca's on Saunders Skelp--there is nae Saunders Skelp here, I trow? As for you, ye wee blackened deevil," (me, Benjie Brail, viz.) "Oh, man, if I had gotten the educating o' ye, my taws wad hae driven mair lair intil ye at the but-end, than ten Southern maisters wha appeal till the head." Our attention was here diverted by the hail of the look-out on deck. "Boat, ahoy!" A pause. "Coming here?" Still no answer. I scrambled up the ladder, by this time replaced, accompanied by Mr Sprawl and Lanyard, who, during my idle palaver with the Scotch corporal, had made an overhaul of all the poor fellows, and seen every one's wants attended to. When we came on deck, we found a cluster of people at the aftermost part of the felucca. The moment we advanced, little Binnacle said, "Some one has twice hailed us from the water astern, sir, but we can make nothing of it. We hear the voice, but we cannot see the man who shouts, sir." Both Davie Doublepipe and myself strained our eyes to catch the object; for although it was a bright moonlight overhead, yet astern of us the thick mist that had rolled down the river, and still hovered in that direction, concealed everything under its watery veil. Presently we heard the splash of a paddle, and a voice shouted out, "Oh, dis current, dis current! I never sall be able to stem him. Send a boat to pick me up; do--send a boat, massa." This was one thing we begged to decline doing.