“I will try again,” he said to himself. And he sang the verse once more, though this time his voice shook so greatly with emotion that he was obliged to stop in the middle in order to steady it.
After this he sat silent, hoping that Belinda would even now open her eyes.
“Then,” said he, “she will see how sad I look, and she will surely be touched.”
But disappointment was again his lot. She never opened even half an eye.
“Shiver my timbers!” said the luckless Sailor-Lad, “she’ll be the death of me.”
And he went away mournfully whistling “The Death of Nelson.”
Then he tried to startle her by suddenly shouting within her hearing a few seafaring expressions he knew. “Hard-a-port! Lay aft! Yo, heave ho!”
She half-opened her eyes, but immediately closed them again. “Those expressions sound a little rough,” she remarked.
He felt sorely tried.
“None so blind as those who won’t see, my lass,” he said one day.