“You madman! What are you saying?” was hissed into his ears. “Mary Dell died when she left her home, driven away by man’s tyranny—when she sought out her brother and his friend, to find them working like slaves in that plantation. It was John Dell who became your companion: Mary Dell’s dead.”
“No,” said Bart, speaking softly and with a homely pathos, full of a poetical sentiment that could not have been expected from his rough exterior as he sat on the deck of a long, low, heavily-sparred schooner. “No, my lad, Mary Dell isn’t dead. She’s hidden here in my breast, where I can look inwards and see the bonny lass with the dark eyes and long black hair as I knowed I loved as soon as I knowed what love meant, and as long as I’ve that lass will never die.”
“Hush, Bart, old friend!” said Jack, softly. “Let her live, then, there; but to me she is dead, and I live to think of her persecutions, and how for two years man has pursued us with his bitter hatred, and hunted us down as if we were savage beasts.”
“Ay,” said Bart, softly; “but isn’t it time to take the other road, and get away?”
“No,” said Jack, fiercely. “Bart, old friend—you are my friend.”
“Friend!” said Bart, in a reproachful tone.
“Yes. I know you are; but once more, if you value my friendship, never speak to me again as you have spoken now.”
“You’re captain, my lad. I’ll do what you like.”
“I know you will. Well, then, do you think I can forgive the treatment we have received? It has been a dog’s life, I tell you—the life of a savage dog.”
“Ay, but we’ve bit pretty sharp sometimes,” said Bart, smiling. “See how we’ve growed, too. First it was the bit of a canoe thing as you came in up the creek.”