A little before sundown, in an open place with a stream, and set about with barbarous mountains, Ballantrae threw down his pack. "Iwill go no further," said he, and bade me light the fire, damning my blood in terms not proper for a chairman.
I told him to try to forget he had ever been a pirate, and to remember he had been a gentleman.
"Are you mad?" he cried. "Don't cross me here! And then, shaking his fist at the hills, "To think," cries he, "that I must leave my bones in this miserable wilderness! Would God I had died upon the scaffold like a gentleman!" This he said ranting like an actor;and then sat biting his fingers and staring on the ground, a most unchristian object.
I took a certain horror of the man, for I thought a soldier and a gentleman should confront his end with more philosophy. I made him no reply, therefore, in words; and presently the evening fell so chill that I was glad, for my own sake, to kindle a fire. And yet God knows, in such an open spot, and the country alive with savages, the act was little short of lunacy. Ballantrae seemed never to observe me; but at last, as I was about parching a little corn, he looked up.
"Have you ever a brother?" said be.
"By the blessing of Heaven," said I, "not less than five.""I have the one," said he, with a strange voice; and then presently, "He shall pay me for all this," he added. And when Iasked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife;and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried.
