On the later days of Captain Draper's illness he moaned and tumbled restlessly. One of the worst symptoms of the fever was its persistent hold on the brain. The sick man raved constantly, carried on excited conversations, gave orders to the sailors, and, in the midst of these wanderings, again and again reverted to one dark subject that seemed to haunt his inflamed mind.
He lived over and over again, day after day, terrible scenes, that had surely been rehearsed in his mind before the sickness. In his fantasy he was standing by the rail of the ship, while a boat was slowly lowered, in which sat Sheridan. As the boat swung over the raging sea, suspended by a rope at bow and stern, the bow rope parted, the boat fell perpendicularly, and Sheridan was flung into the ocean, and drowned.
During this series of mental pictures, the action of the raving man plainly showed that his hand had cut the rope; and his exultation at the completion of the murder was horrible to see. He would turn his face to the partition, away from the light, and chuckle with a vile sound, rubbing his hands in devilish delight.
One day Mr. Wyville sat beside the bed, intending to relieve the tireless Harriet for a few hours. But Harriet still lingered in the room.
Draper had gone once more through the hideous pantomime, accompanying every act with words expressing the baleful intention. Mr. Wyville sat regarding him with compressed lips. When the horrible culmination had come, and the wretch chuckled over his success, Mr. Wyville looked up and met Harriet's fearful gaze.
"Curse him!" whispered Draper, "he was always in my way. I meant it always—but this was the best plan. Ha! ha! better than pistol or poison—accident—ha! ha! drowned by accident!"
"Do you know of whom be speaks?" asked Mr. Wyville of Harriet.
"A man named Sheridan," she answered; he talks of him a great deal."
"A man named Sheridan!" repeated Mr. Wyville to himself. "She speaks as if she did not know him."
He sat silent for a time, his eyes fixed on the guilty man before him, who was unconsciously laying bare the foul secrets of his heart. At last he turned to Harriet and said—
"Do you not know this man named Sheridan?"
"No."
The answer surprised him, and he became silent again. Presently he sent Harriet to her rest.
"I do not see the end," he wearily murmured, when he was alone with the sick man; "but I forebode darkly. Providence has kept this miscreant from a deeper crime than he has yet committed. Heaven grantthat he has also been preserved for repentance and atonement!"
Mr. Wyville had resolved to be at Draper's side when the hour of sanity returned, and to keep his unfortunate wife out of sight until he had prepared him for her presence.
It was midnight when that moment arrived. Draper had slept soundly for several hours. Mr. Wyville first knew that he had returned to consciousness by the movement of his hands. Presently he spoke, in a feeble voice.
"I have been sick, haven't I? How many days?"
"Six days."
"Are we still becalmed?
"No; we are in the Southern trades."
Draper said no more. He moved his head from side to side, trying to look around the room. Mr. Wyville remained still and silent.
"Have you been here with me?" he asked, at length. "You couldn't have been here all the time."
"Not all the time."
"I suppose I spoke aloud, and—and—raved about people?"
Mr. Wyville looked suddenly at him, and caught the reptilian eye that watched the effect of the question. He was impelled to speak sooner than he had intended, by the cunning of the fellow.
"Yes," he said, keeping his powerful look on Draper's face, as if he addressed his inner soul as well as outward sense; "you have told the whole villainous purpose of your heart. If you recover, you may thank God for striking you with sickness to keep you from murder and the murderer's doom. Had you carried out your design, nothing could have saved you; for there are others here who knew your history and your motive."
Draper did not answer, but lay like a scotched snake, perfectly still, hardly breathing, but watching Mr. Wyville with a cold eye.
"Do you know who has nursed you through your sickness?"
Draper moved his head negatively.
"Would you like to know?"
He only looked more keenly at Mr. Wyville, but there was a light of alarm in the look.
"You have been cared for by one whom you have blighted who owed you nothing but curses. Day and night she has been with you, and she has saved your life."
Still Draper did not move or speak, but only looked.