That same night, in Princess Anne, Mrs. Dennis, in her little cottage, undressed herself by a fragment of hearth-fire that now and then flashed upon the picture of her husband, as he had left her sixteen years before, when Levin was a baby—a rich blonde, youthful man, dressed in naval uniform, like Decatur, whose birthplace was so near his own.
His golden hair curled upon his forehead, his blue eyes were full of handsome daring, and his red, pouting mouth was like a woman's; upon his arm a corded chapeau was held, epaulettes tasselled his shoulders, his rich blue coat was slashed with gold along the wide lappels, and stood stiffly around his neck and fleecy stock and fan-shaped shirt-ruffles. He seemed to be a mere boy, but of the mettle which made American officers and privateersmen of his days the only guerdons of the republicanism of the seas against the else universal dominion of England.
This portrait, the last of her family possessions, was the young sailor's parting gift to her when he sailed in the Ida, leaving her a mere girl, with his son upon her breast. The picture hung above the lowly door, the bolt whereof was never fastened in that serene society, and seldom is to this day.
Mrs. Dennis knelt upon the bare floor, and raised her branching arms, white as her spirit, to the lover of her youth:
"Oh, thou I have adored since God gave me to feel the beauty and strength of man in my childhood, if I have ever looked on man but thee with love or wavering, rebuke me now for the offence I am to do, if such it be, in choosing another father for thy boy!"
A low wail seemed to be breathed upon the midnight from somewhere near, and a sick man's cough seemed to break the perfect silence. The widow's hand instinctively covered her bosom as she listened, and, deep in the spirit of her prayer, she continued:
"Oh, Bowie, if thou livest, let me know! May I not live to see thee come and find me in another's arms; thy look would kill me. If thou art detained by enemies, by savage people, or by foreign love, no matter what thy errors, I will still be true! Give me some token by the God that has thee in his keeping, whether thou liest on the ocean's floor or lookest from the stars. If thou art dead, love of my youth, assure me, oh, I pray thee!"
The wail and hacking cough seemed to be repeated very near. A footstep seemed to come.
The door flew open, and in the moonlight stood a man, pale as a ghost, of bandit look, with Spanish-looking garments, and head and neck tied up with cerements, like wounded people in the cockpits of ships of war.