CHAPTER II

IN WHICH A GENTLEMAN PAYS HIS DEBT The first thing I saw on entering the room was my beach-comber. For the rushlight, which was the cabin's sole illuminant, stood on a soap-box beside the couch on which the outcast lay. Dressed in a shrunken and dirty cotton suit, he was propped up against the rough mud wall, a grimy and threadbare wrap thrown across his knees. Despite the awful stuffiness of the place, he shivered beneath this ragged coverlet, although his face and chest glistened with perspiration. Once upon a…