“_You_ to blame, Cousin George! No—a thousand times, no!” Walter cried; but there was a look in the bronzed face of the sea-captain that warned him to be silent, and to hear the rest. “The captain says,” continued the patient narrator, “that although he was well aware of his young kinsman’s passion for the seaman’s life, he yet took no pains either to win or to keep his friendship and confidence. On the contrary, he treated him with scorn, as a child, a book-worm, a landlubber; though all the time in his heart he envied his superior bearing. He rather made-believe to despise him, lest he should be despised by him. At last they had an open quarrel; and a very foolish, childish quarrel it looks now.” “So it was, on my part,” was Walter’s commentary. “Worse on mine,” said the captain. Then, in his eagerness, quite forgetful of the effect of the confusion of tongues, he finally discarded the chaplain’s mediation, and spoke in his own language and his own person:—“Cousin Walter, I mocked and taunted you, and that bitterly. I was sorry a moment afterwards, as I tell you now. I need tell no man whether I was sorry when I knew you were gone—driven from us, likely enough, by those angry words. I laid the sin from that moment at my own door. And your letter, which you wrote to your mother from the _English Merchantman_, only made matters worse with me. Had I not been as blind as a mole, I could have guessed what was likely to happen, and might have hindered it. But I said nothing to any man; and a few days after, we weighed anchor, and off with us to the Turkish seas. A man is apt to forget things, knocking about the world, as I have done from my childhood. Yet, should I reach the age of the patriarchs that lived before the Flood, never—never shall I forget my last home-coming. The _English Merchantman_ touched London Quay a matter of three days before us. She brought home that tale about you, left on the deck of the Spanish ship—whether living or dead, no man knew for certain. If you had seen my father’s face when he told it to me! Woman’s tears are bad enough—and neither my mother nor Lilias spared theirs—but man’s grief is worse to see. And my father blamed himself; though, indeed, _he_ was blameless in the matter. All made their minds up at once that you were dead. But, for my part, I never thought so. And by-and-by I learned what made me certain you were not. My mother went to yours, to comfort her in her sore anguish. When she came back to us, these were her words: ‘My sister lives, because she hopes and prays still.’ Then I took my resolution. Straightway I arose, and went to my father, and told him everything. ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I drove Walter away. Therefore I should peril goods and life to end this horrible suspense, and bring back—himself, if it may be; if not, certain tidings of him. Do not withhold me. It is borne in upon me that I should do this thing.’ But he shook his head,