How was I going to secure my victim before giving the coup de grace?  Should he not be offered up on a stool? if so, I had not one to use; but an idea struck me, and that idea I adopted.  Over the stye, about ten feet from the ground, the limb of a walnut tree stretched across, and my idea was to drop a line over the bough and make it fast round the porker’s snout, haul him up on his hind legs, and bury my knife up to the hilt in his throat about where I thought his heart was situated.  Away I went and procured my cord, threw the end over the limb, made a noose, and got it in the pig’s mouth and over his nose; then I hauled away amid the most blood-curdling shrieks imaginable.  I got him on his hind legs, and then for the first time, as I took the knife from my belt, I knew the full meaning of the word “coward.”  But the deed had to be done, it would never do to let the animal die of old age while I wanted meat; so, setting my teeth, plunge went the knife, and at the same time in my eagerness to step back, down I fell backward over the other pig, who turned and bit me in the thigh, and then as he rushed away went full butt into his comrade, which broke the rope, and down came the bleeding animal on top of me.  I was in an awful state of filth, and as I rose they both came at me again; in fact I might have been seriously hurt had I not used my knife freely on the already-wounded pig.  Luckily the other ran away, or it might have been serious for me.  In falling a second time I went down with my leg under me, and could not rise; but I drove the knife into the animal’s breast with all my might, and then, seizing him round the body with my arms, forced the hilt further in with my chest, but instead of killing the beast, to my horror the point came out of his back as he freed himself and walked away.  I rose and got out of the stye as nimbly as I possibly could, and sat down to try and find my face through the accumulation of blood and filth, which having done, I peeped over the stye wall, and found the pig still alive; so, to end the poor thing’s misery and my own, I took up my gun and shot him dead.  What a relief it was to see him lie stone still in an instant.  I vowed never to attempt a porcine murder again, and while I was on the island the other pig had a good time of it, for as governor of Jethou I abolished capital punishment, and if a pig’s years were as many as Methuselah’s, he might enjoy them all before I should again attempt to put a period to them.

From assassination to boat sailing is a long stride but at least a change.

I performed two long voyages in my little craft; at least they seemed long ones to me at the time, considering the dangers of navigation in these rocky, swift seas.

[Illustration:  A PORCINE MURDER.]

One trip was to Sark, which lies about six miles south-east of Jethou.  I selected a beautiful day in August for this trip, and started at daylight, about four a.m., well provisioned, and with “Begum” to accompany me, for somehow I always felt safer with him beside me.  A light south-west wind was blowing, so we reached Sark by six a.m., and mooring the boat at the foot of the Coupee, in a bay called Grand Greve, I prepared coffee, and had a very leisurely breakfast, wondering at man’s capacity for stowage; but that is due to the salt breeze which never yet put a man’s liver wrong.