"Aware of your unworthiness! No, my dear boy—that is what I hope I shall never be," said Sir Henry.
"I fear," said Lord Robert, "you will have reason to blush for your nephew soon; for I must summon courage to relate to you a story which will, I fear, deprive me of your affection and esteem for ever."
"I shall be sorry to hear anything that is likely to have such effects," said Sir Henry, gravely: and when he looked from him to Philip Harley, and observed his visible agitation, and remembered the bitter hatred that once subsisted between them, he was convinced that Lord Robert had something to communicate respecting his conduct to the young mutineer, not much to his own credit.
Lord Robert was roused from his meditation by the importunities of the boatmen who had rowed him to the ship; and it was quite with the air of his former gay liberality that he flung into their boat a handful of money he had obtained from his uncle for that purpose.
The appearance of Lieutenant Cary on deck occasioned a great surprise to the young friends.
He was absent on shore when they arrived; and they were the more delighted at finding him alive, from the grief they had felt at his supposed loss. Lord Robert told him the manner in which they had found the chest containing his books, flute, and other property.
"Ah! my poor books!" said Cary: "the chest was weighty; and, in the extremity to which we were reduced, after you left the ship, we threw it overboard, in common with everything else that was likely to lighten the ship."
"And pray, how came my poor Neptune overboard? Did you commit him to the mercy of the waves in order to lighten the ship?" said Lord Robert, patting the faithful creature as he spoke.
"What became of Neptune we never knew," said Cary; "but we supposed that he went away with the pinnace; for in the height of our distress, when all on board expected the Diomede to founder every minute, the boatswain, with one midshipman, and two or three sailors, contrived to lower the pinnace and steal away, selfishly leaving their commander and messmates to endure the worst; and, most likely, Neptune, being uneasy at missing his master, jumped into the boat and went with them."
"They met with a fitting reward for their cowardly desertion," said Lord Robert; "for Neptune was the only creature that reached the island with life: some of the bodies we found and buried. But how came the ship to reach the shore of Brazil?"