The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE EQUINOX about him; but he was yet too besotted with fear or moral distress to be made the recipient of my plans. SoIhad only one expedient left to me, and turned all my faculties towards the last of my companions. He is not young by any means. His temples are already crowned with the grey silver of at least fifty years and his nose with the carmine of many gallons. But his remarkable acute- ness renders him extremely valuable. When I opened my mind to him he simply lifted his eyes at me with a shrewd look and smiled gently with the smile of the Wise. I told him the story of the meeting with my kidnapper; and explained to him the operation I had to go through before I could fit the coffin of lofty thoughts. With the exception of the secret of the eight compartments, I opened my very soul to that worthy successor. He must possess a keen sense of humour; for he began gently, and dry-humour-like, telling me a quite different story. His smile, of course, showed that he was only trying to entertain me. According to his version, I am a well-known surgeon who had lost his reason and was taken to the private yacht of a celebrated alienist. As I seemed to be always talking of a coffin without a cover, one had been made of my size. Unhappily, says the sailor, a wreck happened; and the doctor who was to cure me has been drowned. This narrative caused me to laugh heartily. I could scarcely keep my ribs together. I had no trouble in pointing out to him the contradictions in his story, and he soon agreed with me. When he saw, moreover, that I alone of us all was armed, and that the natives treated me with great respect, he put himself entirely at my disposal. I took advantage of this 37°