vibrate. I looked up, saw a man clinging by
one hand to the iron rod supporting the padelle,
and with the other .... Merciful Heaven! It
was the Piedmontese firing the rope above me
with his torch!

I had no time for thought—I acted upon
instinct. It was done in one fearful moment. I
clambered up like a cat, dashed my torch full in
the solitary felon's face, and grasped the rope
an inch or two above the spot where it was
burning! Blinded and baffled, he uttered a
terrible cry, and dropped like a stone. Through all
the roar of the living ocean below, I could hear
the dull crash with which he came down upon
the leaded roof—resounding through all the
years that have gone by since that night, I hear
it now!

I had scarcely drawn breath, when I found
myself being hauled up. The assistance came
not a moment too soon, for I was sick and
giddy with horror, and fainted as soon as I was
safe in the corridor. The next day I waited on
the amministratore, and told him all that had
happened. My statement was corroborated by
the vacant rope from which Gasparo had
descended, and the burnt fragment by which I had
been drawn up. The amministratore repeated
my story to a prelate high in office; and while
none, even of the sanpietrini, suspected that my
enemy had come by his death in any unusual
manner, the truth was whispered from palace to
palace until it reached the Vatican. I received
much sympathy, and such pecuniary assistance
as enabled me to confront the future without
fear. Since that time my fortunes have been
various, and I have lived in many countries.

IV.
PICKING UP WAIFS AT SEA.

SOME little time elapsed, after the French
gentleman's narrative was over, before any more
visitors made their appearance. At last, there
sauntered in slowly a light-haired melancholy
man; very tall, very stout; miserably dressed
in cast-off garments; carrying a carpenter's
basket, and looking as if he never expected any
such windfall of luck as a chance of using the
tools inside it. Surveying Mr. Traveller with
watery light-blue eyes, this dismal individual
explained (in better language than might have
been expected from his personal appearance)
that he was in search of work; and that, finding
none, he had come in to stare at Mr. Mopes for
want of anything better to do. His name was
Heavysides; his present address was the Peal
of Bells down in the village; if Mr. Traveller
had the means of putting a job in his hands, he
would be thankful for the same; if not, he would
ask leave to sit down and rest himself agreeably
by looking at Mr. Mopes.

Leave being granted, he sat down, and stared
to his heart's content. He was not astonished,
as the artist had been; he was not complacently
impenetrable to surprise, like the Frenchman—
he was simply curious to know why the Hermit
had shut himself up. "When he first skewered
that blanket round him, what had he got to
complain of?" asked Heavysides. "Whatever
his grievance is, I could match it, I think."

"Could you?" said Mr. Traveller. "By all
means let us hear it."

There has never yet been discovered a man
with a grievance, who objected to mention it.
The carpenter was no exception to this general
human rule. He entered on his grievance,
without a moment's hesitation, in these
words:

I SHALL consider it in the light of a personal
favour, at starting, if you will compose your
spirits to hear a pathetic story, and if you will
kindly picture me in your own mind as a baby
five minutes old.

Do I understand you to say that I am too big
and too heavy to be pictured in anybody's mind
as a baby? Perhaps I may be—but don't
mention my weight again, if you please. My weight
has been the grand misfortune of my life. It
spoilt all my prospects (as you will presently
hear) before I was two days old.

My story begins thirty-one years ago, at
eleven o'clock in the forenoon; and starts with
the great mistake of my first appearance in this
world, at sea, on board the merchant ship
Adventure, Captain Gillop, five hundred tons
burden, coppered, and carrying an experienced
surgeon.

In presenting myself to you (which I am now
about to do) at that eventful period of my life,
when I was from five to ten minutes old; and
in withdrawing myself again from your notice
(so as not to trouble you with more than a short
story), before the time when I cut my first tooth,
I need not hesitate to admit that I speak on
hearsay knowledge only. It is knowledge,
however, that may be relied on, for all that. My
information comes from Captain Gillop,
commander of The Adventure (who sent it to me in
the form of a letter); from Mr. Jolly,
experienced surgeon of The Adventure (who wrote
it for me—most unfeelingly, as I think—in the
shape of a humorous narrative); and from Mrs.
Drabble, stewardess of The Adventure (who
told it me by word of mouth). Those three
persons were, in various degrees, spectators—I
may say, astonished spectators—of the events
which I have now to relate.

The Adventure, at the time I speak of, was
bound out from London to Australia. I
suppose you know, without my telling you, that
thirty years ago was long before the time of the
gold-finding and the famous clipper ships. Building
in the new colony, and sheep-farming far
up inland, were the two main employments of
those days; and the passengers on board our
vessel were consequently builders or sheep-
farmers, almost to a man.

A ship of five hundred tons, well loaded with
cargo, doesn't offer first-rate accommodation to
a large number of passengers. Not that the
gentlefolks in the cabin had any great reason to
complain. There, the passage-money, which