No sooner had Orlando and the negro passed round the cliff to which Rosco had directed them, than they beheld¹ a sight which was well calculated to fill them with anxiety and alarm, for there stood Zeppa, panting and wrestling with one of the fiends that were in the habit of assailing² him.  
The fiend, on this occasion, was familiar enough to him—the stout³ branch of a tree which overhung his cave, but which his delirious⁴ brain had transformed into a living foe⁵. No shout or cry issued from the poor man’s compressed lips. He engaged in the deadly struggle with that silent resolve of purpose which was natural to him. The disease under which he laboured had probably reached its climax⁶, for he swayed to and fro, in his futile⁷ efforts to wrench⁸ off the limb, with a degree of energy that seemed more than human. His partially⁹ naked limbs showed the knotted muscles standing¹⁰ out rigidly¹¹; his teeth were clenched¹² and exposed; his blood-shot eyes glared; the long, curling and matted hair of his head and beard was flying about in wild disorder¹³; and his labouring chest heaved as he fiercely, silently, and hopelessly struggled.
 
Oh! it was a terrible picture to be presented thus suddenly to the gaze of a loving son.
 
“Stay where you are, Ebony. I must meet him alone,” whispered Orlando.
 
Then, hastening forward with outstretched arms, he exclaimed—
 
“Father!”
 
Instantly Zeppa let go his supposed enemy and turned round. The change in his aspect was as wonderful as it was sudden. The old, loving, gentle expression overspread his features, and the wild fire seemed to die out of his eyes as he held out both hands.
 
“Ah! once more, my son!” he said, in the tenderest of tones. “Come to me. This is kind of you, Orley, to return so soon again; I had not expected you for a long time. Sit down beside me, and lay your head upon my knee—so—I like to have you that way, for I see you better.”
 
“Oh, father—dear father!” said Orlando, but the words were choked in his throat, and tears welled from his eyes.
 
“Yes, Orley?” said Zeppa, with a startled look of joyful¹⁵ surprise, while he turned his head a little to one side, as if listening in expectancy¹⁶; “speak again, dear boy; speak again. I have often seen you since you went to the spirit-land, but have never heard you speak till to-day. Speak once more, dear boy!”
 
But Orley could not speak. He could only hide his face in his father’s bosom¹⁷ and sob¹⁸ aloud.
 
“Nay, don’t cry, lad; you never did that before! What do you mean? That is unmanly. Not like what my courageous¹⁹ boy was wont²⁰ to be. And you have grown so much since last I saw you. Why, you’ve even got a beard! Who ever heard of a bearded man sobbing²¹ like a child? And now I look at you closely I see that you have grown wonderfully tall. It is very strange—but all things seem strange since I came here. Only, in all the many visits you have paid me, I have never seen you changed till to-day. You have always come to me in the old boyish form. Very, very strange! But, Orley, my boy” (and here Zeppa’s voice became intensely earnest and pleading), “you won’t leave me again, will you? Surely they can well spare you from the spirit-world for a time—just a little while. It would fill my heart with such joy and gratitude²². And I’m your father, Orley, surely I have a right to you—more right than the angels have—haven’t I? and then it would give such joy, if you came back, to your dear mother, whom I have not seen for so long—so very long!”
 
“I will never leave you, father, never!” cried Orlando, throwing his arms round Zeppa’s neck and embracing him passionately²³.
 
“Nay, then, you are going to leave me,” cried Zeppa, with sudden alarm, as he clasped Orlando to him with an iron grip. “You always embrace me when you are about to vanish out of my sight. But you shall not escape me this time. I have got you tighter than I ever had you before, and no fiend shall separate us now. No fiend!” he repeated in a shout, glaring at a spot in the bushes where Ebony, unable to restrain his feelings, had unwittingly come into sight.
 
Suddenly changing his purpose, Zeppa let go his son and sprang like a tiger on the supposed fiend. Ebony went down before him like a bulrush before the hurricane, but, unlike it, he did not rise again. The madman had pinned him to the earth and was compressing his throat with both hands. It required all the united strength of his son and the negro to loosen his grasp, and even that would not have sufficed had not the terrible flame which had burned so long died out. It seemed to have been suddenly extinguished by this last burst of fury, for Zeppa fell back as helpless as an infant in their hands. Indeed he lay so still with his eyes closed that Orlando trembled with fear lest he should be dying.
 
“Now, Ebony,” said he, taking the negro apart, when they had made the exhausted²⁴ man as comfortable as possible on his rude couch in the cave; “you run down to the ship and fetch the doctor here without delay. I will be able to manage him easily when alone. Run as you never ran before. Don’t let any soul come here except the doctor and yourself. Tell the captain I have found him—through God’s mercy—but that he is very ill and must be carefully kept from excitement and that in the meantime nobody is to disturb us. The doctor will of course fetch physic; and tell him to bring his surgical²⁵ instruments also, for, if I mistake not, poor Rosco needs his attention. Do you bring up as much in the way of provisions as you can carry, and one or two blankets. And, harkee, make no mention of the pirate to any one. Away!”
 
During the delivery of this message, the negro listened eagerly, and stood quite motionless, like a black statue, with the exception of his glittering eyes.
 
“Yes, massa,” he said at its conclusion, and almost literally²⁶ vanished from the scene.
 
Orlando then turned to his father. The worn out man still lay perfectly²⁷ quiet, with closed eyes, and countenance²⁸ so pale that the dread²⁹ of approaching death again seized on the son. The breathing was, however, slow and regular, and what appeared to be a slight degree of moisture lay on the brow. The fact that the sick man slept soon became apparent, and when Orlando had assured himself of this he arose, left the cave with careful tread, and glided³⁰, rather than walked, back to the place where the pirate had been left. There he still lay, apparently³¹ much exhausted.
 
“We have found him, thank God,” said Orlando, seating himself on a bank; “and I would fain hope that the worst is over, for he sleeps. But, poor fellow, you seem to be in a bad case. Can I do aught to relieve you?”
 
“Nothing,” replied Rosco, with a weary sigh.
 
“I have sent for a surgeon—”
 
“A surgeon!” repeated the pirate, with a startled look; “then there must be a man-of-war off the coast for South sea traders are not used to carry surgeons.”
 
“Ah! I forgot. You naturally don’t wish to see any one connected with a man-of-war. Yes, there is one here. I came in her. But you can see this surgeon without his knowing who or what you are. It will be sufficient for him to know that you are an unfortunate sailor who had fallen into the hands of the savages³².”
 
“Yes,” exclaimed Rosco, grasping eagerly at the idea; “and that’s just what I am. Moreover, I ran away from my ship! But—but—do you not feel it your duty to give me up?”
 
“What I shall feel it my duty to do ultimately is not a matter for present consideration. Just now you require surgical assistance. But how did you come here? and what do you mean by saying that you ran away from your ship?”
 
Rosco in reply gave a brief but connected narrative³³ of his career during the past three years, in which he made no attempt to exculpate³⁴ himself, but, on the contrary, confessed his guilt³⁵ and admitted his desert of death.
 
“Yet I shrink from death,” he said in conclusion. “Is it not strange that I, who have faced death so often with perfect indifference³⁶, should draw back from it now with something like fear?”
 
“A great writer,” replied Orlando, “whom my father used to read to me at home, says that ‘conscience makes cowards of us all.’ And a still greater authority says that ‘the wicked flee when no man pursueth.’ You are safe here, Rosco—at ............