Still no reply.
“Let us tear away the veil,” he continued; “for surely I am no egotist when I say to you that from the beginning it was more than this.”
“No; I did not know then. I thought that you might be my friend; that I should keep up this disguise until the end,” was faltered piteously.
“Impossible!” cried Humphrey, sternly. “Let me be plain with you. Let me tell you that I have sat here alone thinking, reading your character, pitying you for all that is past.”
“Pity!” came in a deep, low voice.
“Yes,” he said, gently, “pity. Let me try, too, and be grateful. For you spared my life at first; you saved it afterwards.”
“Go on. You torture me.”
“I must torture you, for I have words to speak that must be uttered.”
He paused for a few moments; and then went on, speaking now quickly and agitatedly, as if the words he uttered gave him pain at the same time that they inflicted it upon another.
“When I was chosen to command this expedition, against one who had made the name of Commodore Junk a terror all round the gulf and amid the isles, I knew not what my fate might be. There were disease and death to combat, and I might never return.”