his infancy, with his mother, somewhere in the “Hinterland” of Guinea.  While still a child, his mother escaped with him into Liberia, a where he had remained till her death, She was, according to him, an Obeah woman of great power, venerated exceedingly by her own people for her prophetic abilities.  Before her death, she had told him that he would die suddenly, violently, in a struggle with a white man in a far-off country, but that the white man would die too by his hand.  She had also told him that he would be a great traveller and hunter upon the sea.  As he went on, his speech became almost unintelligible, being mingled with fragments of a language I had never heard before; moreover, he spoke as a man who is only half awake.  A strange terror got hold of me, for I began to think he was going mad, and perhaps about to run a-mok, as the Malays do when driven frantic by the infliction of real or fancied wrongs.

But he gradually returned to his old self, to my great relief, and I ventured somewhat timidly to remind him of the esteem in which he was held by all hands; even the skipper, I ventured to say, respected him, although, from some detestable form of ill-humour, he had chosen to be so sneering and insulting towards him.  He shook his head sadly, and said, “My dear boy, youse de only man aboard dis ship—­wite man, dat is—­dat don’t hate an’ despise me becawse ob my colour, wich I cain’t he’p; an’ de God you beliebe in bless you fer dat.  As fer me, w’at I done tole you’s true,’n befo’ bery little w’ile you see it come true.  ’N w’en dat happens w’at’s gwine ter happen, I’se real glad to tink it gwine ter be better fer you—­gwine ter be better fer eberybody ’bord de CACH’LOT; but I doan keer nuffin ’bout anybody else.  So long.”  He held out his great black hand, and shook mine heartily, while a big tear rolled down his face and fell on the deck.  And with that he left me a prey to a very whirlpool of conflicting thoughts and fears.

The night was a long and weary one—­longer and drearier perhaps because of the absence of the darkness, which always made it harder to sleep.  An incessant day soon becomes, to those accustomed to the relief of the night, a burden grievous to be borne; and although use can reconcile us to most things, and does make even the persistent light bearable, in times of mental distress or great physical weariness one feels irresistibly moved to cry earnestly, “Come, gentle night.”

When I came on deck at eight bells, it was a stark calm.  The watch, under Mistah Jones’ direction, were busy scrubbing decks with the usual thoroughness, while the captain, bare-footed, with trouser-legs and shirt-sleeves rolled up, his hands on his hips and a portentous frown on his brow, was closely looking on.  As it was my spell at the crow’s-nest, I made at once for the main-rigging, and had got halfway to the top, when some unusual sounds below arrested me.