My Captain continued in the same kindness towards me throughout the voyage--suffering me to mess at his table, where the provisions were plain but wholesome, and encouraging me to talk to him, seeming to take pleasure in my simple conversation. In the mornings when, with a fair wind and full sail, the ship ploughed through the water, while the sun was hot overhead, he would make me a seat with a pillow in the shade, and would then entreat me to tell him about the rebellion and our flight to Black Down. Or he would encourage me in serious talk (though his own conversation with his sailors was over-much garnished with profane oaths), listening with grave face. And sometimes he would ask me questions about the village of Bradford Orcas, my mother and her wheel, Sir Christopher and the Rector, showing a wonderful interest in everything that I told him. It was strange to see how this man, hard as he was with the prisoners (whom it was necessary to terrify, otherwise they might mutiny), could be so gentle towards me, a stranger, and a costly one too, because he was at the expense of maintaining me for the whole voyage, and the whole time being of good manners, never rude or rough, or offering the least freedom or familiarity--a thing which a woman in my defenceless position naturally fears. He could not have shown more respect unto a Queen. The Lord will surely reward him therefor. One evening at sunset, when we had been at sea six weeks, he came to me as I was sitting on the quarter-deck and pointed to what seemed a cloud in the west. 'Tis the island of Barbadoes,' he said. 'To-morrow, if this wind keeps fair, we shall make the Port of St. Michael's, which some call the Bridge, and then, Madam, alas!'--he fetched a deep sigh--'I must put you ashore and part with the sweetest companion that ever sailed across the ocean.' He said no more, but left me as if he had other things to say but stifled them. Presently the sun went down and darkness fell upon the waters; the wind also fell and the sea was smooth, so that there was a great silence. 'To-morrow,' I thought, 'we shall reach the port, and I shall be landed with these wretches and sent, perhaps, to toil in the fields.' But yet my soul was upheld by the vision which had been granted to me upon the Black Down Hills, and I feared nothing. This I can say without boasting, because I had such weighty reasons for the faith that was in me. The Captain presently came back to me. 'Madam,' he said, 'suffer me to open my mind to you.' 'Sir,' I told him, 'there is nothing which I could refuse you, saving my honour.'