I halted, and stood looking on, feigning to watch her busy fingers, whilst in reality I gazed at her face with a lover’s delight. It was hard to believe that what was passing was something more than a dream, astonishingly vivid and logical. Again and again, when in the company of this girl, a sense of the unreality of our association had possessed me to such a degree at times that had the feeling continued, I might honestly have feared for my head. But never before this moment had that sense been so strong upon me. I forgot her beauty in my wonder. It was sheer bewilderment to recall her as she was on board the Indiaman; her haughtiness, her disdain, her contemptuous insensibility to all presences save that of my Lord Sandown’s son, the cold glance of scornful surprise that would instantly cause me to avert mine—to recall this and how much more? and behold her now pensively bending her lovely head and face of high-bred charms over that sordid need of rough sailor’s clothes, occasionally stealing a peep at me of mingled sweetness and a sort of wistful amusement, as though she grieved while she smiled at the necessity that had brought her to such a pass. Yet there was no repining; if she sighed, it was under her breath; forced as her light air of cheerfulness might be, it proved a growing resolution of spirit, a development of heroic forces, latent in her till recently. Secretly, however, I was worried by keen anxiety. What was to be the issue of this voyage? I merely feigned a manner of confidence when talking with her about the result of this amazing ramble, as I chose to figure it. In reality, I could not think of the time when we should have arrived upon the spot where the dead captain had declared his island to be without dread. Suppose there were no island! What next step would the men take? The disappointment that must follow their long dream of gold might determine them upon plundering the barque—put them upon some wild scheme of converting her and her cargo into money. Or suppose—though I never seriously considered the matter thus—suppose, I would ask myself, that the island proved real, that the treasure proved real, that the men should dig and actually find the gold! What then? Was I to conceive that a body of ignorant, reckless, lawless sailors, led by a man who was at heart the completest imaginable copy of a sea-villain, would peaceably divide the treasure amongst them, pay me over my share—which, God knows, I should have been willing to attach to Mr. Lush’s feet on condition of the others throwing him overboard—and suffer me to quietly navigate the barque to an adjacent port, conscious that I owed them a bitter grudge for the outrage they had committed in forcing me and the lady to accompany them?