“What did you say?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think I murmured something like ‘Oh, my dear, my dear!’ and then I let go of his hands and turned away to the sea; and when I looked round again, he was gone.”
“And that was the end?”
“No. The end was lying in the berth above mamma, who was sound asleep, and—well, snoring rather—lying there and feeling the ship slowing down and then stopping, and hearing the mail-boat come alongside, and all the noise and the shouting and the bustle. I knew I could hear nothing—there would be nothing to hear—but I couldn’t help listening. I listened very hard all the time, but of course I heard nothing; and at last—after hours and hours, as it seemed—we began to move again. That was the real end. I knew it had happened then; and so it had. He wasn’t at breakfast. But luckily nobody on the ship—none of the passengers, I mean—found out about it till we got to Liverpool; and as mamma and I weren’t going on to London, it didn’t matter.”
“And he got off?”
“Yes, he got off—that time.”
“I’m afraid this great man had one foible,” I observed. “He was proud of those hands! Well, Cæsar didn’t like getting bald, so I learnt at school.”
“I always remember them as they lay in mine,” she said. “His hands and his eyes—that’s what I remember.”
“Ever seen him again?”
“Of course not.” She sat where she was for a moment longer, then rose. “Shall we go in?”