"It is very awkward to change my name so suddenly," said De Walden, to whom I had communicated his father's death, and whatever else Sir Oliver had written to my uncle. "I believe I shall continue plain Mr De Walden, until I reach headquarters. But my poor father--alas! alas!--what misery he would have saved himself and me, had he but made this disclosure before. You know my story but in part, Mr Brail. My poor mother always said and believed she was his wife, but he showed me such proofs to the contrary that I had no alternative but to credit him. However, Heaven's will be done--peace be with him." There was an awkward pause, when, as if willing to change the subject, he continued--"How absolutely necessary for one's comfort _here_ it is to believe in a _hereafter_, Mr Brail; the misery that some people are destined to endure in this scene of our probation--my poor mother, for instance"---- "Or that most unfortunate creature, Lennox, that perished when the Midge went down," said I, willing to draw him away from brooding over his own misfortunes--"what a death." "Miserable, miserable," said De Walden. "By the way," continued I, in my kindly meant attempt, "it puzzles me exceedingly to conceive how Adderfang and his crew did not pillage the Moonbeam when we were so completely in his power." "There are three reasons," replied De Walden, "any one of which was sufficient to have prevented him. First of all, he was here under the Buenos Ayrean flag; and as San Andreas must have been a convenient rendezvous, both from its seclusion and the abundance of provisions to be had in it, he might be reluctant to commit any overt act of piracy under Mr ***'s nose. Secondly, the Devil is not always so black as he is painted; and, from all we can learn, he was a fearful mixture of good and evil: and, last of all, and possibly the strongest of the three, you were scarcely worth plundering, being in ballast--had you been returning with your cargo of shell, I would have been sorry to have been your underwriter. But what an indomitable fellow this same Adderfang must have been. You saw how desperately he fought the little Midge, and how gallantly he carried on her, in his futile attempt to beat her out of the bay. I verily believe, from all I have heard, that he would have fired the magazine, and blown all hands into the air, before he would have struck. But see, there goes little Piper and his boat's crew, with the poor blind girl's body to her long home." I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a boat leave the Spider, pulled by four men, with a midshipman in the stern, and a deal coffin lying along; the flag that covered it having been blown aside. "Blind?" said I, "a blind girl did you say?" as the scene when I considered Adderfang on his death-bed at Havanna, suddenly rose up before me.