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 Temple," said Edwards respectfully; "your frame will sink else."

"Leave, leave me," she said, raising her beaming eyes for a moment to his; "I feel too much for words! I am grateful, Oliver, for this miraculous escape; and next to my God to you."

Edwards withdrew to the edge of the rock, and shouted—"Benjamin! where are you, Benjamin?"

A hoarse voice replied, as if from the bowels of the earth, "Here, away, master; stow'd in this here bit of a hole, which is all the same as hot as the cook's coppers. I'm tired of my birth d'ye see, and if-so-be that Leather-stocking has got much overhauling to do before he sails after them said beaver, I'll go into dock again, and ride out my quarantine 'till I can get prottick from the law, and so hold on upon the rest of my 'spaniolas."

"Bring up a glass of water from the spring," continued Edwards, "and throw a little wine in it; hasten, I entreat you."

"I knows but little of your small drink, master Oliver," returned the reward, his voice issuing out of the cave into <he open air, "and the Jamaiky held out no longer than to take a parting kiss with Billy Kirby, when he anchored me alongside the highway last night, where you run me down in the chase. But here's sum'mat of a red colour that may suit a weak stomach, mayhap. That master Kirby is no first rate in a boat, but he'll tack a cart among the stumps, all the same as a Lon'on pilot will back and fill through the colliers in the Pool."

As the steward ascended while talking, by the time he had ended his speech, he appeared on the rock, with the desired restoratives, exhibiting the worn out and bloated features of a man who had run deep in a debauch, and that lately.