"The ship," he said, hoarsely; "I'm afraid it's gone. Good-by, your honor. Good-by, Miss Emily," he added, hoarsely, and then he turned again with a gesture and a movement which gave to all who were so intently watching him the impression that he was somehow breaking away from his moorings, and walked rapidly down the hill.
"The ship! the ship!" murmured the admiral, oblivious of all the rest, leaning forward in his chair over the rail of the porch and gazing at the vessel.
His hand grasped the hilt of the sword of the Constitution, which Richard had handed back to him as he left. Emily stepped over to his side and stood there with her arm around his neck. They waited in silence a little, a foreboding of disaster stealing over them.
"I wonder," she said, presently, in tones of great anxiety, "what the matter can be? I am afraid it is something serious. I never knew Captain Barry so agitated."
"It's the end, daughter, the end. I feel it here," murmured the old man, staring before him.
"Grandfather, if you don't mind, I think I will go down to the ship," said Emily; "I'm so anxious."
"Don't go too near it, child," said the old man; "one life is enough for the ship."
"Shall I go with you?" asked Josephine, noticing how pale and worried Emily looked, and feeling somewhat alarmed herself.
"Go, both of you, and I will stay with the admiral. Look to Richard," said Mrs. Revere, apprehensively, sure now that something was seriously wrong.
Poor Emily was in two minds about the matter. She wished to remain with the old man, and yet, when she thought of Revere on that ship with Captain Barry, and how strangely, how madly, almost insanely, the sailor had looked, her heart smote her with undefined terror of she knew not what.