Mrs. Carleton made an inclination with her head.
"Forgive me," he said, "my conversation has caused you pain."
"Please continue," she replied, "tell me all you know about him."
"I witnessed many of his acts of kindness during our voyage, and received kindness from him at what I suppose was the last moment of his life. The boat you were in was full and I urged him to get into another one, but he refused, saying, 'I can swim and you cannot.' At the same moment he took hold of me and dropped me into the boat as easily as if I were a child. You know how tall and powerful he was. The next instant your boat was capsized and I saw Colonel Carleton leap into the sea and swim toward you. His hand was almost upon your arm, when an enormous wave swept him out of sight. The same wave capsized our boat, and the next one threw me into the cove below. I might have got away before, but part of a broken mast lay across my chest and I was entangled hand and foot by the rigging. I could neither move nor call aloud. I heard voices more than once, the voices of ladies. I believe it was your voice and that of your friend, for I never knew my ear to deceive me. I saw corpses lying all around me. The tide took them away and brought them back again many times while I was there. All one night a dead hand lay across my throat, but I could not disengage my hands to remove it. I had no fever; I was conscious of everything. The tide was higher than usual this morning. It lifted the mast and I crawled from under it."
He appeared to suffer much from exhaustion and lay down again upon the rugs, and closing his eyes remained silent. After a little rest, he again sat up and resumed his conversation with Mrs. Carleton.
"I have a great love of music," he began. "I left the colony of Virginia with the intention of going to London, to perfect my study of that divine art, under the direction of Orlando Gibbons. He is very young to be a composer, but he is already of much renown."
For some time he continued to speak fluently on the subject of music, a subject of which the ladies perceived he was a complete master. As he talked, he became full of enthusiasm, and that wondrous light which belongs to genius alone illumined his beautiful, eyes and his whole soul spoke through them.
"Ah, my madrigals," said he, "they will yet be sung to His Majesty, King James. My symphonies I shall submit to Orlando Gibbons, then I shall hear them played by a full orchestra, the world will hear, then justice will be accorded to me, the great masters will be my judges, genius such as theirs allows them to be generous and true in their opinions of other men. They will see me as I am. They will not condemn what they cannot understand. They will not call my life useless, because my tastes, my talents and my whole being compel me to be different from those among whom I live. I cannot help it, and I would not if I could."
An expression of mental pain passed over his face as he thus proceeded. "Why did my uncle call my life and my work useless? It is hard to be misunderstood. If I can create out of my own brain something that is pure and beautiful, that gives happiness, that draws coarse natures away from their coarseness, to feelings more elevated, that can bring to some an ecstasy of delight, to others a sweet calm. If I follow a pursuit which injures no human being, no living creature, why am I to endure displeasure? Is it more manly, more noble to hunt the poor, panting deer till it falls gasping on the ground, and then to save its life for the purpose of chasing it again for sport? Is it more noble to ride races till the horses drop down dead? Tell me, do such pursuits elevate or brutalize?"
Taking a roll of paper from his breast, he handed it to Mrs. Carleton, saying, "I have a symphony here which I composed since I left my home; would you like to look at it? I wish my twin brother Ronald could see this; he understands me, and he will understand my music, although since his accident, his hand can no longer obey his will; yet he will read my symphony, aye, more, he will play it in his soul. With it you will find a song also, the words and music are both mine; when you have read it, will you hand it to your friend?"