I had set out to drag the Jew to justice. A voice ironical reminded me that Valentine Imroth was free and ashore, that he mocked my knowledge, and might yet outwit a sullen police. The great house of crime he had erected must be pulled down for a season; but who would say that it would not be rebuilt upon a foundation of human credulity more sure, and to be relied upon, than any he had yet discovered? I had not brought this arch-villain to justice; I knew nothing of the confederates he had upon the high seas, of the ships which befriended him, it may be of other refuges as safe and unnamed as this vast hulk now sinking below the horizon and disappearing from my view. And what was this but failure, failure as complete as any in the history of the police I had derided—a failure which no circumstances could atone, no explanations justify? Such were my reflections—such the thoughts that came to me as the great ship faded from my vision, downward to the nether world where the voices of the lost should welcome her, and the spirits of the damned give her greeting. Long I stood there, my eyes upon the horizon, my vision enchained by the void as though a voice must come to me from the unknown and say “This is the truth; this is the hour.” We were alone on the waste of waters now: a brave ship running homeward to the cities and the cottages of England; a ship that carried stout hearts and merry men; upon whose decks the prattle of little children might in fancy be heard, their childish forms uplifted, their young lips kissed. From all this joy I stood apart. What had home to give, what were the shores of England to me if I might not find there the love and confidence of my little Joan? Not as a child but as a woman had she spoken last night when she said—“Tell me the story of my life and I shall have the right to listen to you.” There could be no rest for me, no thought of man’s love for her until the record proved her not the daughter of General Fordibras, but his victim. I had been conscious of this from the beginning, but the inevitability of it recurred to me now when the great ship had disappeared from my ken, and all my hopes seemed to sink with her. To win Joan’s love I must snatch her secret from a rogue’s keeping, carry it triumphantly to her, and so write it that all the world might read. God alone knew how such a task as this might be accomplished. I wonder not that its very magnitude appalled me. And so the new day waxed old, and found me still alone, my eyes upon the void; my heart heavy with the burden I must carry. The great sea had spoken and I had heard her voice and bowed to the destiny of her judgments. Let the land now answer me—that land for which my friends yearned as exiles, who have heard a call from home and answered it with tears of gladness because their faces are toward the light. CHAPTER XXXII. WE HEAR OF THE JEW AGAIN.