“Captain Yetsom,” said Spear, speaking earnestly and seeking to meet the eye of the commander of the _Xyphias_, “if you will give me the freedom of your deck during this engagement, I promise you upon my sacred honor that I will take no part in it against you or for your enemy. I owe the dogs who deserted me no love or service, Heaven knows! And even should circumstance place it in my power to harm you, or aid them, I will do neither. I swear it in the hearing of high Heaven!” Captain Yetsom looked into the eyes that had been seeking his so earnestly, and saw in them such good faith as won his confidence. “Well—I will trust you,” he said, and hurried off to his duties. Spear had promised no more than this. All through the exciting chase he had remained a silent, inactive spectator, brooding mournfully over—what? Officers and men, passing rapidly on their hurried errands, sometimes glanced at this sombre figure like a statue there, and wondered carelessly what his thoughts and feelings might be. And what were they in truth? Who could tell? Was his love for the old flag stealing over him? Did he remember how his father, now in his grave, had sailed and served under it for more than forty well-spent years? How that brave and patriotic father had taught him to love and honor it as the emblem of his nation, the safeguard of liberty, the _ægis_ under which the oppressed of all the earth found or hoped to find protection? Or did he remember his own stainless and promising youth when he had been the pride of his father, the joy of his mother, the idol of his brothers and sisters, and the very life’s life of her, the fair one, dearer than all the rest, who was to have been his wife, but from whom the sins of his manhood had utterly divided him. Ah, seduced by evil counselors, misled by specious arguments, tempted by ambition, and weakened by that growing vice, he had suffered himself to be drawn in and hurried down into that malebogle, in which so many brave, misguided spirits perished! He had deserted the old Flag—he had raised his hand against it! I cannot speak here with assurance, for I gathered these antecedents of this man from another source than his lips; but I think it must have been memories like these that caused the sobs and tears that shook his broad chest and flowed down his bronzed cheeks as he stood again under the old Flag, among the men who were fighting for it. I say no one could read his heart or tell his thoughts and feelings; but many saw his actions and heard the few words he uttered. “God have mercy on me, what have I been doing? God forgive me, for I have been mad, I think!” While he had been standing thus absorbed, entranced, by the memories of the past and the pains of the present, the storm of battle had been gathering all around him. The ships had been manœuvring and were now abreast of each other, pouring in their broadsides.