There was one topic of conversation, however, on which these young men had never yet embarked, and this is the more surprising, considering their age and the habits of those warriors amongst whom they were so proud to have been numbered. This forbidden subject was the charm of the other sex, and it was perhaps because each felt himself so constituted as to be keenly alive to its power that neither ventured an allusion to the great influence by which, during the first half of life, men’s fortunes, characters, happiness, and eventual destiny, are more or less affected. It required a fair breeze, a summer sea, and a moonlight night in the tropics to elicit their opinions on such matters, and the manly, rough-spoken skipper was the first to broach a theme that had been already well-nigh exhausted by the watch on deck—gathered on the forecastle in tranquil enjoyment of a cool, serene air and a welcome interval of repose. Old Turenne’s system of tactics had been declared exploded; the Duke of Marlborough’s character criticised; Cavalli’s last opera canvassed and condemned. Captain George took two turns of the deck in silence, stopped short at the taffrail, and looked thoughtfully over the stern— “What is to be the end of it?” he asked abruptly. “More fighting, of course! More prizes, more doubloons, and then? After all, I believe there are things to make a man’s life happier than even such a brigantine as this.” “There is heaven on earth, and there is heaven above,” answered the other, in his dreamy, half-earnest, half-speculative way; “and some men, not always the hardest-hearted nor the most vicious, are to be shut out of both. Calvin is a disheartening casuist, but I believe Calvin is right!” “Steady there!” replied George. “Nothing shall make me believe but that a brave man can sail what course he will, provided his charts are trustworthy and he steers by them. Nothing is _impossible_, Eugène. If I had thought that I should have lost heart long ago.” “And then?” asked Beaudésir, sadly. “And then,” repeated the Captain, with a shudder, “I might have become a brute rather than a man. Do you remember the British schooner we retook from those Portuguese rovers, and the _mustee_,[3] who commanded them? I tell you I _hate_ to think it possible, and yet I believe a man utterly without hope might come to be such a wretch as that!” “_You_ never would,” said Beaudésir, “and _I_ never should; I _know_ it. Even hope may be dispensed with if memory remains. My pity is for those who have neither.” “I could not live without hope,” resumed the Captain, cheerily. “I own I do hope most sincerely, at some future time, for a calmer and happier lot than this; a lot that would also make the happiness of another; and that other so gentle, so trusting, and so true!” Eugène looked in his face surprised. Then he smiled brightly, and laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder.