“‘Oh, she was too fond of her own people, and they got her to do all their washing and scrubbing, and never gave her a moment’s rest until they killed her with hard work. And then the devil blast the one of them came to the funeral, and ’twas strangers that lowered her into the grave, and no one but myself and the clergyman said a prayer for the repose of her soul,’ ses he.
“‘She was too good to be remembered, I suppose,’ ses I.
“‘She was, God help us,’ ses he. ‘But my ninth wife wasn’t either a Venus or a Helen of Troy. She was so ugly that one day when we were going over a bridge, the river stopped, and didn’t begin to flow again until she left the town.’
“‘You had a lot of wives,’ ses I.
“‘Yes, I had a few, but ’tis a mistake to marry more than ten or twelve times,’ ses he.
“Well, when I saw that his grief was getting the better of him, I ses: ‘Let us not talk any more about your eye, but tell me how you lost your leg, and I’ll give you another glass of grog.’
“‘I never told that story to any one for less than three glasses of grog and a small bottle of rum to bring home with me for the morning, except one time I told it to the Shah of Persia for nothing, when he promised me the hand of his favourite daughter in marriage.’
“‘Tell me the story, whatever ‘twill cost,’ ses I.
“‘All right,’ ses he. And then he moved closer to the fire, and this is what he told:
“‘It was a cold and stormy night in the long long ago. The thunder rolled and the lightning flashed and the rain fell down in torrents. I was aboard ship in the middle of the ocean; the stars and moon were screened and not a light was seen except a glimmer from the port side of another vessel labouring in the storm. Peal after peal of thunder resounded until one thought that the gods of war on all the other planets had gone mad, and were discharging their heavy artillery at the earth, trying to shatter it to atoms. The canvas was torn from the yards, and spar after spar fell, until nothing but the masts remained.