"The ship," he said, hoarsely; "I'm afraid it's gone. Good-by, your honor. Good-by, Miss Emily," he added, hoarsely, and then he turned again with a gesture and a movement which gave to all who were so intently watching him the impression that he was somehow breaking away from his moorings, and walked rapidly down the hill. "The ship! the ship!" murmured the admiral, oblivious of all the rest, leaning forward in his chair over the rail of the porch and gazing at the vessel. His hand grasped the hilt of the sword of the _Constitution_, which Richard had handed back to him as he left. Emily stepped over to his side and stood there with her arm around his neck. They waited in silence a little, a foreboding of disaster stealing over them. "I wonder," she said, presently, in tones of great anxiety, "what the matter can be? I am afraid it is something serious. I never knew Captain Barry so agitated." "It's the end, daughter, the end. I feel it here," murmured the old man, staring before him. "Grandfather, if you don't mind, I think I will go down to the ship," said Emily; "I'm so anxious." "Don't go too near it, child," said the old man; "one life is enough for the ship." "Shall I go with you?" asked Josephine, noticing how pale and worried Emily looked, and feeling somewhat alarmed herself. "Go, both of you, and I will stay with the admiral. Look to Richard," said Mrs. Revere, apprehensively, sure now that something was seriously wrong. Poor Emily was in two minds about the matter. She wished to remain with the old man, and yet, when she thought of Revere on that ship with Captain Barry, and how strangely, how madly, almost insanely, the sailor had looked, her heart smote her with undefined terror of she knew not what. She must go! It might be too late already! The two girls ran swiftly toward the ship in vague but rapidly increasing fear. CHAPTER XXII "SAMSON AGONISTES" As Revere and Barry walked down the hill the soul of the younger man was filled with light-hearted joy. He talked gayly to the old sailor, who had speedily joined him; and although the monologue--since Barry had said nothing--could not have been called a conversation, Richard did not heed his silence. It was but a short distance from the house to the ship, but in the brief time required for the passage Barry lived over his life, or that part of it at least which was of moment. As life is compassed in instants to the drowning, so in these seconds through his mental vision swept the past. He saw again the admiral as he had seen him in the prime of manhood; he recalled once more the blue-eyed, sunny little baby he had held so tenderly in his unfamiliar arms; who, in the society of the two men, had grown to be a woman whom he loved. The days and years of happy companionship, of humble and faithful service on the one hand, of kind and generous recognition on the other, passed before him with incredible swiftness.