"You speak as if you didn't believe it, at all events," said Rough-and-Ready, in tones as soft as a girl's; "but then your circumstances are different to mine. You are young; I am"--
"Not old."
"Old enough for twice your years. Then you have friends at home, mayhap?"
"Ay, dear ones."
"Mother and father?"
"Ay; God bless them!"
"Wife perhaps?"
Joshua gave a gasp that sounded almost like a cry of pain.
"Ah, well," continued Rough-and-Ready, "if we were to go down this minute, I don't know the man or woman who would say 'Poor fellow!' when my fate was known. I leave no one behind me, and my death would bring no grief to a single soul. Perhaps my condition is the happier of the two."
"Not so," said Joshua sadly; "and I hope--indeed I believe--that you don't mean what you say. I have a friend at home--Dan, his name--to whom the news of my death would be the bitterest grief. I have dear ones at home, whose lives would be lives of mourning if I were not to return. I know this, and feel the pain that they would experience should it be God's will that we are not to escape this peril. But, strange as it may sound, I would not spare them the pain if it were in my power. Could I, by a wish, destroy the memories that make my life dear to me and them--dearer than you imagine--and so pluck from their hearts and minds the sting that my death would bring to them, I would not do so. For after death, there is life!"