The more he considered the situation the more unfortunate the position in which he found himself. As a lover,--of Emily, that is,--he was pledged to another woman. As a guest of the admiral, he was there to take away the ship. And, although he entered little into his calculations, he might have added, had he known it, that on both counts, ship and maiden, he was about to break the heart of the man who had saved his life. And all of this had been brought about in the most innocent and unwitting way. He felt himself, in some strange manner, the sport of a hard and malignant fortune. The night was still and calm to the admiral, sleeping dreamlessly without foreboding; but to his granddaughter--ah, she was the dreamer. This young hero, this demigod from over the sea, how he had looked at her, how he had listened to her, how his eyes had seemed to pierce the very depths of her maiden soul! He had not complimented her upon her singing; he had only asked for more and still more. And how beautifully his voice had blended with hers! Was he, indeed, the fairy prince come at last to awaken the sleeping beauty of her passion,--to kiss into life the too long dormant feeling in her heart? There are songs without words in maidens' hearts, and one of them rippled through the innocence of her girlish soul in the still watches of that heavenly night. And they all forgot old Barry alone on the ship. CHAPTER XI BLOWS AT THE HEART Revere spent the next morning in a thorough inspection of the ship. It was a duty enjoined upon him in the carrying out of his orders, and he had felt somewhat guilty in having neglected it the day before. His Naval Academy course had included instruction in wooden ship-building,--iron ships were only just beginning to be at that date,--and he therefore viewed the _Susquehanna_ with the eyes of an expert. At his own request, he had been attended in this survey by the sailor Barry, although it is more than probable that, in any case, the old man would have insisted upon accompanying him. With what jealous pain the veteran seaman dogged the footsteps of the young sailor and watched him examine his beloved ship! Nothing escaped Revere's rigid scrutiny. Barry himself, after his years of familiarity with the old hulk, could not have made a more exhaustive investigation. There was but one spot which Revere did not view. That was the private locker which the old seaman had made for himself in the one habitable portion of the ship. "What's this?" Revere had asked, pausing before the closed, locked door. "Your traps, eh? Well, I guess we have no need to inspect them," he continued, smiling, and passing on. Yet, had he known it, behind that closed door lay his fate, for the lost letters and papers--which Barry had not yet read--were there.