"
"And at sea?" she whispered with a gesture at once beautiful and
pathetic, for it had the motion of helplessness and hopelessness. What
she had heard had stirred her soul, and she wanted to hear more--or was
it that she wished to drain the cup now that it was held to her lips?
-drain it to the last drop of feeling.
"At sea," he answered, with his eyes full of intense feeling--"at sea, I
was free at last, doomed as I thought, anguished in spirit, and yet with
a wild hope that out of it would come deliverance. I expected to lose my
life, and I lived each day as though it would be my last. I was chief
rogue in a shipful of rogues, chief sinner in a hell of sinners, and yet
I had no remorse and no regret. I had done all with an honest purpose,
with the good of the sailors in my mind; and so I lived in daily touch
with death, honour, and dishonour. Yet I never saw a sailor in the
shrouds, or heard the night watch call 'All's well!' in the midst of
night and mutiny, that I did not long for a word from you that would take
away the sting of death. Those days at sea for ten long weeks were never
free from anxiety, not anxiety for myself, only for the men who had put
me where I was, had given me captain's rank, had--"
Suddenly he stopped, and took from his pocket the letter he was writing
on the very day she landed in Jamaica.
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