"Great God!" he inwardly cried, "I am covered with the slime of the past." Without difficulty he found the captain of the Creole.

"I don't know very much about the poor fellow," he said.

"I run across him nearly six months ago fit a little place called Dura, on the coast of Costa Rica.

He was working about a sort of hotel, scrubbing and taking care of the horses; and I guess I shouldn't have paid any attention to him if I hadn't heard somebody say that he was an American; and it struck me as rather out of place that an American should be scrubbing round for those fellows, and I began to inquire about him.

The landlord said that he was brought there sick, a good while ago, and was left for dead, but just as they were about to bury him he came to, and got up again after a few weeks.