I sat me down opposite to him and regarded him fixedly in that gloomy light, and it seemed as though I brought by my presence some glimmer of reason to the wandering brain. "Crafer!" he exclaimed. "Ah yes, Crafer! Drink, Crafer, drink. So thou hast join'd us. 'Tis well, and better than serving Phips. We have more wealth here than ever Phips dreamed of--if we could but get it away. Away! Yes! away! What might we not do if we could but get it to England! We might all be gallant, topping gentlemen with coaches and horses, and a good house, and see ridottos and--but stay, Crafer, you must know my friends." And here the creature stood upon his feet--I standing, too, not knowing but what he was going to spring at me, though he had no such intention--and began naming his phantom friends to me and presenting them, so to speak. "This," says he, "is Peter Hynde, a gay boy and a good sailor. Also he is our musicianer of nights--he singeth too a sweet song. Stand up, Hynde, and make your service. And this is Will Magnus, with a good heart, but ever lacking money till he joined us. A brave lad! 'Tis he who has cut many a throat! Barbara, my dear, throw thy golden mane back and kiss the brave gentleman--she was but a child, sir, when we found her, yet now, now, she--Ha! again that wound! How the thrust of the steel bites!" He sank back into his chair, and tore at his damask waistcoat and then at his ruffled shirt--yellow with dirt and spilt drink, and dabbled with thick bloodstains--and so, opening of his bosom, there I did see a great gash just over the heart, in his left pap. And I wondered not now that he was mad with the drink and the fever of his wound; the wonder was more that he was not quite dead. He sat a-gazing at this, with his eyes turned down upon it, and muttered, "One gave it me as from that accursed galliot, as they boarded. It seemed I had gotten my death. Ah! how it burns, how it throbs! Barbara! Black Bess! hast thou no styptic for stopping of this flux, no balm for this pain? Ha! No? Then give me drink, drink; 'tis the best consoler of all, the best slayer of pain." And here he seized his ladle, filled a glass from the tub, and drained it at a gulp. Then he wandered on again: "Barbara, get you up to the chirugeon at Kingston; tell him I am sore wounded." "Jamaica is far away from here," I said to him. "Barbara will scarce bring you aught from the pharmacie there to-night." Then, bending forward to him across the table, I said, "Alderly, you are wounded to the death; that stab and your drinkings have brought you to the end, or nearly so. Tell me truly, did this," and I kicked the box at my feet, "and these bags of coin come from the plate-ship? Tell me!" He peered at me through the deepening gloom made by the expiring lamp, as though his senses were returning and he knew me, and muttered: