Life was not made any the more pleasant for me inasmuch as I still shared a cabin with Amos, though I was devoutly thankful that I saw little of him. Night by night, he would sit late at cards, trying--I should imagine--to win back what he had lost to Mr. Forsyth; and I made a point of being asleep, or pretending to be so, before he came to bed.
And now I have to tell of something which has a direct bearing upon all that follows. I had become so despondent and forlorn, and I found myself in the company of such infamous and shameless rogues, that I had actually forgotten my friends. I had forgotten that there were yet in the world true, honest men who could be both brave and loyal.
One evening, I must confess, my heart was near to breaking. The world seemed all so hopeless and so wicked that I brought my face to my hands and cried just as I had been wont to cry, when I was a little chap of four years old, when things had not gone for me exactly as I wanted. And as I sobbed, I could hear the gamblers in the saloon beyond the cabin door; the "clink" of the bottles and the glasses, and the deeper note of the coins upon the table; now and again, a gruff oath from Amos or Joshua Trust, and Mr. Forsyth's affected drawl. And then, a voice, quite near to me, whispered in my ear:
"Me lad, be quick! I want a word with you."
I sprang to my feet--I had been lying on my berth--and looked about me. I could see no one in the cabin, and had begun to think of ghosts and spirit-voices, when I heard the whispering again.
"Here, me lad! The port-hole."
I looked at the port, and could see a face by the light of the oil lamp--a face in a frame studded with stars, the face of a man with a short stump of a grisly beard.
"Rushby!" I exclaimed.
"The same," said he. "But speak low, for Heaven's sake! Those rascals are at their cards in the saloon; the door's thin, and it's all up with us if we're discovered."
I went to the port-hole, so that my face was close to his.