A few months previous it would have caused the slaver’s captain not a moment’s uneasiness, had he been in even a greater strait. If the gallows-rope had been quivering over his head, its noose gaping to receive his neck, it would not then have caused a difference in his pulse, or a pang of sorrow in his heart—for he was then both brave and reckless; and knowing when he entered his present life that the penalty was death, he would but have thought the deal had been against him, the game lost, and he, of course, must pay the stake. For what is life worth without an aim—an object; living but to eat, drink, and toil. With nothing to look forward to in the future but a cessation from monotony, is worse than death. And Willis, driven from the field of honorable ambition, at enmity with his relations, and loving or beloved by no one, had little to fear from death or disgrace. But now, his feelings were altered. Love, that all powerful passion, had brought about a change; not that he now _feared_ death, but the manner of it; and the thought that the last Francisca would hear of him, as the condemned felon, who had paid the penalty of the law without even repenting of his course, was harrowing. And he had thought, too, that time, which brings about the most apparently improbable things, might so arrange events, that he would not always be the outcast he now was; and even in the dim future he had pictured to himself Francisca as being his. It seemed, however, as if his course would now soon be run, and his hopes blighted; and, steeped in intense agony of mind, he was insensible to aught around, when he was aroused by a rough grasp on the shoulder, and a sailor asked if he was not the captain of the schooner. He answered in the affirmative, and was told the captain of the brig wished to see him. Following the sailor, he was led to the cabin. Coming from the light of the sun, it was comparatively dark, and at first Willis did not observe that any one was in it; but becoming accustomed to the light, he discovered the figure of De Vere, pale and attenuated, lying on a sofa. At first Willis was somewhat shocked; for he thought that De Vere had been killed in the duel, which belief was confirmed by not seeing him on deck during the fight; but knowing, now, that he had been only wounded, he quickly regained his look of quiet composure, and fixing his eye on De Vere’s, he stood silently before him. A smile of gratified hatred was playing over De Vere’s white face; and the sight of Willis, knowing him to be completely in his power, seemed to afford him so much pleasure, that, gloating on him with a sparkling eye, he did not break the silence for some moments. “You thought I was dead, did you, my noble captain?” he at last said, in a satyrical tone; “but you find I have life enough left yet to be at your hanging; and I have a mind, for fear I should not, to have you strung up now. Twice you have had the luck—the third time is mine.”