"You have saved my father's life and mine, and I have prayed God to bless you for your noble courage. I have had no opportunity to thank you before. They would not let me see you. The captain said you had mutinied and were in irons. My father wishes to thank you--his heart is so full that he cannot rest--but he is too weak to move. Will you come and see him?" She made a movement towards the cabin next the pantry. "Not now," I said. "You should be asleep, resting after your terrible trials." "How could I sleep?" she exclaimed with a shudder. "I have heard all that has been said. I heard them killing the man in that cabin there." She clasped her hands convulsively. "Frightful things have happened," I said, speaking quickly, for I every moment expected the men to come running down the companion-ladder, near which we were conversing; "but the worst has passed. Did not you hear them answer me that you and your father were safe? Go, I beg you, to your cabin and sleep if you can, and be sure that no harm shall befall you whilst I remain in this ship. I have a very difficult part before me, and wish to reflect upon my position. And the sense that _your_ security will depend upon my actions," I added, moved by her beauty and the memory of the fate I had rescued her from, "will make me doubly vigilant." And as she had kissed my hand on meeting me, so now I raised hers to my lips; and obedient to my instructions, she entered her cabin and closed the door. I stood for some time engrossed, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, by the picture impressed on my mind by the girl's sweet face. It inspired a new kind of energy in me. Whatever qualms my conscience may have suffered from my undertaking to navigate the ship for the satisfaction and safety of a pack of ruffians, merely because I stood in fear of my life, were annihilated by the sight of this girl. The profound necessity enjoined upon me to protect her from the dangers that would inevitably come upon her, should my life be taken, so violently affected me as I stood thinking of her, that my cowardly acquiescence in the basest proposals which the crew could submit, would have been tolerable to my conscience for her lonely and helpless sake. The voices of the men overhead, talking in excited tones, awoke me to a sense of my situation. I took another draught of wine, and entered the captain's cabin, wishing to inspect the log-book that I might ascertain the ship's position at noon on the preceding day. The shadow of the mizzen-mast fell right upon the interior as I opened the cabin door. I looked about me for a lamp, but was suddenly scared by the spectacle of a man crawling on his hands and knees out of a corner. "Oh, my God!" cried a melancholy voice. "Am I to be killed! Will they murder me, sir? Oh, sir, it is in your power to save me. They'll obey you. I have a wife and child in England, sir. I am a miserable sinner, and not fit to die."