“‘Nine years, lacking three months, we were together in that dungeon,’ continued Hull, ‘and then he died. A sudden cold, a closing of the lungs, and he was gone. He passed away in my arms, madam, very peacefully, and with his last breath he bade me carry messages to you.’
“‘And you waited all these years, man?’
“‘Madam, I knew nothing of the place he called his home, and though he often tried for hours at a time to remember, he could not recall them. Never, in all that time, did he talk lucidly upon any subject at all, save when he spoke of you and his horse, and then he said no more than I have told you. It was as if, finding that all things were going from him, he commanded himself to remember the two beings he loved.’
“‘Yet you knew his name, William Hull?’ said Mistress Bings.
“‘Aye, madam. When at last my old captain was able to secure my release, I begged him and the governor to go with me to the keeper of the prison, and there I told him that I had but one little favor to ask in return for the years of life he had wrenched from me, and that was the name of my companion. So he gave it to me—Bings. But he could not tell me from what American port he had sailed, nor would he give me anything of his story. To this day, madam, I do not know the fate of his ship or his crew, and I fear that this tragedy like many others, will be unrecorded to the end of time.’
“‘To the end of time,’ whispered Mistress Bings. ‘To the end of time is a long while, William Hull.’
“‘So long it will never come,’ said William Hull.
“‘But he never forgot? My husband never forgot? In darkness and solitude and madness, he remembered me still?’
“‘Madam, it was his one joy.’
“‘Pacolet is long since dead,’ said Mistress Bings. ‘He is buried in a fine field, and a great bowlder is placed above his grave to mark it.’