However, by the time Imogene arrived on deck I had succeeded in tranquilising my mind. She took some turns with me and then went to the captain on the poop and stayed with him, that is, stood near him, though I do not know that they conversed, till he went to his cabin; whereupon I joined her, neither of us deigning to heed the mate's observation of us, and for the rest of the morning we were together, knitting our hearts closer and closer whilst we talked of England, of her parents, the ship her father had commanded, and the like, amusing ourselves with dreams of escape, till hope grew lustrous with the fairy light our amorous fancies flung upon it. And lo! here on the deck of this Death Ship, with Van Vogelaar standing like a statue within twenty paces of us, and the dead face of a breathing man at the tiller, and silent sailors languidly stirring forwards or voicelessly plying the marline-spike or the serving-mallet aloft, where the swollen canvas swayed under the deep-breasted clouds like spaces of ancient tapestry from which time has sponged out all bright colours--here, in this fated and faded craft, that surged with the silence of the tomb in her through hissing seas and aslant whistling winds, did I, in the course of our talk, find myself presently speaking of my mother, of the little town in which she lived, of the church to which, under God, I would lead my sweetest, there to make her my bride! She blushed rosy with delight, and I marked the passionate gladness of her love in the glance she gave me, as she lifted the fringes of her white eyelids to dart that exquisite gleam, whilst she held her chaste face drooped. But looking, as though some power drew me to look, at Van Vogelaar, I met his malignant stare full, and the chill and venom of his storm-bruised countenance fell upon my heart like a sensible atmosphere and poison. For the life of me I could not help the shudder that ran through my frame. "Do you believe," said I, "that the men of this Death Ship have any power of blighting hope and emotion by their glance? The mere sighting of this vessel, it is said, is sufficient to procure the doom of another!" She shook her head as though she would say she could not tell. "There is something," said I, "to ice the strongest man's blood in the expression Van Vogelaar sometimes turns upon me. There is an ancient story of a bald-pated philosopher who, at a marriage-feast, looked and looked a bride, and the wondrous pavilion which the demons she commanded had built, into emptiness. He stared her and her splendours into thin air, sending the bridegroom to die with nothing but memory to clasp. There may be no philosophy in yonder Dutch villain, but surely he has all the malignity of Apollonius in his eyes." "Do you fear he will stare me into air?" said she, smiling.