He was by name Alexander Ducas, a son of France, his native village being situate on the Bay of Avranches, facing Jersey.  He was about my own age, but had seen more ups and downs than most men of double his years.  He had been in the French navy; had been mate of several vessels; had also taken charge of several English yachts; had been skipper of two or three small trading vessels, and finally had become owner and skipper of the little ketch which had met with such a disastrous end a few days before.  This was not the first nor the second time he had narrowly escaped death by drowning; but as he afterwards told me, “he thought he had done with the surface of the water,” and probably had I not opportunely been on the spot, he would have shared the fate of his poor crew, none of whose bodies were ever seen again.

[Illustration:  RESCUE OF ALEC DUCAS.]

“Why did you throw overboard your water barrel life preserver; before you clutched my rope,” I asked him.

“A double chance,” he replied, “for if the rope business had failed, I might still have secured the aid of the barrels to support me.  A poor chance I allow, but a chance nevertheless.”

He was of medium height, fair, with sandy moustache, compactly knit, and of surprising strength for a man of his inches.  I afterwards found that he was possessed with more than an ordinary amount of physical endurance, for no matter how much work he crowded into a long summer’s day, he was always as blithe as a cricket when work was over, and we sat by the old cannon to smoke an evening pipe and chat together about our plans and prospects.

Strange to say, he knew the man I buried at sea some months before, in fact, had sailed with him on one vessel for several months, and he moreover gave him a very bad character.  It appears that he was a most desperate fellow, having been in prison on several occasions for violent conduct, and was noted for his brutal language and bad behaviour.  He had been turned out of the French navy for insubordination, and while on the frigate was a perfect terror to his messmates.  He was noted as the strongest man of the three hundred who formed her crew, and as Ducas said, “There won’t be enough tears shed over his death by the friends who knew him to wet a postage stamp!”

What a lucky thing for me this man did not become my comrade.

By the end of a week Ducas, or as I more familiarly called him Alec, was able to take short walks, and the more he saw of the island the better he liked it, and finally asked to be allowed to stay with me, and cultivate the land, and render what service he could in other ways.

I was in a quandary to know how to answer him, as I did not know how it would affect my agreement with Young Johnson “to stay on the island for six months longer.”  I therefore told Alec I would let him know my decision in four days from then, giving myself that time to turn the matter over in my mind.