I only smiled and shook my head. I did not believe a word of it. Yet, perhaps, I was wrong. He knew very well how to take care of his money; in fact, compared with other young fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But he could do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness would expand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations, and drown them sometimes; and he was the sort of person, who, if the fancy were strong enough, might marry in haste, and repent--and make his wife, too, repent--at leisure.
'What do you laugh at, Charlie?' said Wylder, grinning himself.
'At your confounded grumbling, Mark. The luckiest dog in England! Will nothing content you?'
'Why, I grumble very little, I think, considering how well off I am,' rejoined he, with a laugh.
'Grumble! If you had a particle of gratitude, you'd build a temple to Fortune--you're pagan enough for it, Mark.'
'Fortune has nothing to do with it,' says Mark, laughing again.
'It was all the Devil. I'm not joking, Charlie, upon my word, though I'm laughing.' (Mark swore now and then, but I take leave to soften his oaths). 'It was the Persian Magician.'
'I mean what I say. When we were in the Persian Gulf, near six years ago, I was in command of the ship. The captain, you see, was below, with a hurt in his leg. We had very rough weather--a gale for two days and a night almost--and a heavy swell after. In the night time we picked up three poor devils in an open boat--. One was a Persian merchant, with a grand beard. We called him the magician, he was so like the pictures of Aladdin's uncle.'
'Why _he_ was an African,' I interposed, my sense of accuracy offended.
'I don't care a curse what he was,' rejoined Mark; 'he was exactly like the picture in the story-books. And as we were lying off--I forget the cursed name of it--he begged me to put him ashore. He could not speak a word of English, but one of the fellows with him interpreted, and they were all anxious to get ashore. Poor devils, they had a notion, I believe, we were going to sell them for slaves, and he made me a present of a ring, and told me a long yarn about it. It was a talisman, it seems, and no one who wore it could ever be lost. So I took it for a keepsake; here it is,' and he extended his stumpy, brown little finger, and showed a thick, coarsely-made ring of gold, with an uncut red stone, of the size of a large cherry stone, set in it.