as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir," continued the
stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed to escape from
the malady of thought. "I don't want to boast, sir; I only want
to show you that I have some practical reason for wearing as my
motto--'Never say die.' I have had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack
beside: five several times I have had bullets through me; I have been
bayoneted and left for dead; I have been shipwrecked three times--and
once, as now, I was the only man who escaped; I have been fatted by
savages for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends
only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow chance I had,
which I never expected to squeeze through: but, on the whole, I have
taken full precautions to prevent its recurrence."
"What was that, then?"
"I have been hanged, sir," said the doctor quietly.
"Hanged?" cried the Lieutenant, facing round upon his strange
companion with a visage which asked plainly enough--"You hanged? I
don't believe you; and if you have been hanged, what have you been
doing to get hanged?"
"You need not take care of your pockets, sir,--neither robbery
nor murder was it which brought me to the gallows; but innocent
bug-hunting. The fact is, I was caught by a party of Mexicans, during
the last war, straggling after plants and insects, and hanged as a
spy. I don't blame the fellows: I had no business where I was; and
they could not conceive that a man would risk his life for a few
butterflies.
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