'My dear,' I said, 'if we escape in safety there may yet be happiness in store. No man knoweth the future.' She shook her head. 'Happiness,' I told her, 'doth not commonly come to man in the way which he most desires and prays. For, if he doth obtain the thing for which he hath so ardently prayed, he presently finds that the thing bringeth not the joy he so much expected. Or it comes too late, as is the case often with honours and wealth, when one foot is already in the grave. I mean, my dear, that we must not despair because the thing which most we desired is taken from us. Perhaps we ought not to desire anything at all, except what the Lord shall provide. But that is a hard saying, and if men desired nothing it is certain they would no longer work.' I talked thus at length to divert her mind from her troubles. 'To thee, poor child,' I said, 'have been given afflictions many and great--the loss of godly parents, a husband whom thou must avoid, and the deprivation of earthly love. Yet, since thou art so brave, Alice, I will tell thee--I thought not to tell thee anything of this----' 'What, Humphrey? What?' 'Briefly, Alice, thou shalt not be taken alive.' 'How--unless you kill me?' 'We are agreed, my dear--Barnaby and I--that if we cannot escape any boats which may pursue us the boat shall be sunk, and so we shall all drown together. Indeed, Alice, I confess that I am not myself so much in love with life as to return to that captivity and intolerable oppression from which we have gotten away. Therefore, be assured, we will all drown rather than go back.' 'Oh!' she sighed, but with relief, 'now shall I fear nothing. I have not lost everything, since I have thee still--and Barnaby. Alas! my head has been so full of what Madam said--that we should be certainly caught, and all of us flogged. To be flogged! Who would not rather die?'--she shivered and trembled. 'To be flogged!--Humphrey, I could not bear the shame!' She trembled and shivered as she repeated this confession of fear. 'Fear not, my dear,' I said; 'there are those on the boat who love thee too well to suffer that extreme of barbarity. Put that fear out of thy mind. Think only that we may have to die, but that we shall not be taken. To die, indeed, is very likely our fate: for we have but a quarter of an inch of frail wood between us and the seas. If a storm should arise, we fill with water and go down; if the wind should drop we should be becalmed, and so perish miserably of hunger and thirst; if Barnaby steer not aright----' 'Humphrey,' said Barnaby, 'fill not her innocent head with rubbish. 'Tis not the time of tornadoes, and there will be no storm. The wind at this season never drops, therefore we shall not lie becalmed. And as for my steering aright, why, with a compass--am I a lubber?'