But all the same, I was not to be deceived by their apparent tractableness and quiet exterior. I knew but too well the malignant purpose that underlay this reposeful conduct, and never addressed them but felt that I was accosting murderers, who, when the moment should arrive, would watch their victims miserably drown, with horrid satisfaction at the success of their cruel remedy to remove all chance of their apprehension. On this Sunday, old Mr. Robertson came on deck for the first time, accompanied by his daughter, who had not before been on the poop in the daytime. It was my watch on deck; had it been the carpenter's, I should have advised them to keep below. What I had feared had now come to pass. Mr. Robertson's memory was gone. He could recall nothing; but what was more pitiful to see, though it was all for the best so far as he was concerned, he made no effort to recollect. Nothing was suggestive; nothing, that ever I could detect, put his mind in labour. His daughter spoke to me about this melancholy extinction of his memory, but not with any bitterness of sorrow. "It is better," she said, "that he should not remember the horrors of that shipwreck, nor understand our present dreadful position." It was indeed the sense of our position that took her mind away from too active a contemplation of her father's intellectual enfeeblement. There was never a more devoted daughter, more tender, gentle, unremitting in her foresight of his wants; and yet, in spite of herself, the feeling of her helplessness would at times overpower her; that strong and beautiful instinct in women which makes them turn for safety and comfort to the strength of men whom they can trust, would master her. I knew, I felt through signs touching to me as love, how she looked to me out of her loneliness, out of the deeper loneliness created in her by her father's decay, and wondered that I, a rough sailor, little capable of expressing all the tenderness and concern and strong resolutions that filled my heart, should have the power to inspirit and pacify her most restless moods. In view of the death that might await us--for hope and strive as we might, we could pronounce nothing certain--it was exquisite flattery to me, breeding in me, indeed, thoughts which I hardly noted then, though they were there to make an epoch in my life, to feel her trust, to witness the comfort my presence gave her, to receive her gentle whispers that she had no fear now; that I was her friend; that she knew me as though our friendship was of old, old standing! I say, God bless her for her faith in me! I look back and know that I did my best. She gave me courage, heart, and cunning; and so I owed my life to her, for it was these things that saved it. She exactly knew the plans concerted by the boatswain and myself, and was eager to help us; but I could find no part for her.