His heart like ice within his breast--all was lost now, every hope gone that, of late, he had once again begun to cherish!--Stephen Charke advanced to where that man lay, and, approaching noiselessly, looked down on him. Looked down and recognised that here was no sign of death or coming death; that the man was sleeping peacefully and calmly; that he was rescued for the second time within the last month from a sudden doom. He also saw something else--he observed that Bampfyld had recovered his sight. This he could not doubt. Near him was some fruit which he must have gathered recently. And he had pulled down some of the branches of the trees which grew close by, and had shed them of their leaves, upon which he was now lying, they making an easier pallet than the grass alone would have done, while Charke perceived, also, that he had been fashioning a sturdy branch of the tamarind into a stout stick. Doubtless, he had recovered his sight through the shock of his immersion, when the ship heeled over. Strong, determined, masterful as Stephen Charke had been through all the disasters which had overwhelmed the _Emperor of the Moon_; brave and stalwart as he had shown himself when, with none other left to command the doomed ship but himself, he had helped to furl and unfurl sails, to steer like any ordinary seaman at the wheel, and to endeavour manfully to hold the vessel up and ward off instant destruction--he was beaten now. Beaten! defeated! And he felt suddenly feeble, so feeble that he was forced to sit down by the saved man's side, while doing it so quietly that the other did not awaken. Beaten! defeated! Ay, and with nothing left of prospect in the future, nor ever any hope. Nothing! nothing! nothing! What had he hoped? he found himself asking: what, in these last few days? What dreamt of? A home, a wife; perhaps, in the future, children waiting for his return, running to meet him and to beg for stories of the sea, of tempests surmounted, of dangers passed. Now, there would never be any home, nor wife, nor children. Nothing! He had loved one woman fondly, madly; the one woman in all the world for him. Until ten minutes ago he had believed that, some day, he would win her. And, now, it was never to be. His home would be the desolate home which the sailor ashore inhabits; his existence a long series of toiling across the seas in any ship wherein he could find employment, first one, then the other, for poor wages and without one gleam of sunshine to cheer him. What a life! And--and it had seemed, only an hour ago, that all was likely to be so different. She, Bella Waldron--his love--no, not his! never his now--was being drawn towards him, she relied on him, trusted in him; but, henceforth, she would need him no more. This other had come back, would come back into her life again, and--he would go out of it for ever. God! it was bitter.