Here Stella's voice died away as a specially vindictive gust swept by their sheltered nook, and Sir Frederic, after pressing a tender kiss upon her lips, sprang to his feet and wrapping her closer in his ample rug, almost carried her across the deck and down to the comfortable stateroom, then leaving her with Mrs. Sinclair, he climbed the stairs once more, and walked back and forth across the slippery planks, trying to calm, if possible, the tumult of indignation and sorrow, that Stella's recital aroused within his breast.
Soon two other passengers joined him in his solitary walk, and it was evident to him by the peculiar roll of the body, that one of the newcomers at least, was well accustomed to pacing slippery decks and encountering heavy seas. Sure enough, he was the old "sea dog" whose genial, brown face had won the hearts of all at the Captain's table. He was Commander of some ship now on dry dock, and was taking this opportunity to try a voyage with his friend, the Captain of the Cunarder.
To-night, he had succeeded in enticing a particularly timid young man on deck to "try the weather and brace him up a bit," as he good-naturedly explained it. But now that he was once more walking the deck in the teeth of a "rattling breeze," 'his cup of pleasure overflowed and he proceeded to terrify the young man nearly out of his wits by a thrilling sea yarn of earlier days.
Sir Frederic, realizing that a story told on deck is common property, linked his arm in the young man's unoccupied one and catching step as best he could, walked on, while he listened somewhat absently to the Captain's narrative.
What manner of mankind is he Who dares impersonate the dead? Alas! The doom of treachery Must some day fall upon his head.
"It was twelve years ago," the Captain was saying, "and I was in charge of the 'Water Sprite,' running from Liverpool to Calcutta. She was a rakish little craft, with a slippery keel,--quick to mind her helm and would carry sail to the last, but we'd had a long, rough voyage and all hands was pretty nigh used up, but when we was about three days from the eastern port we was struck, almost unawares, by a terrible gale. I say unawares, but I must own we was in pretty good shape for squalls all the time, but on this partic'lar night I staid below more'n I should if it hadn't been that one of the young chaps that shipped 'tween decks in the cargo at Liverpool, was a dyin' out of pure out and out sea sickness.