“I cannot believe that the poor young fellow is guilty of the terrible crime laid to his charge,” said Mrs Neaves to her husband one day.
“Nor I either, my dear; but we must go by the evidence against him, and I do not believe he has the slightest chance of life.”
“Terrible!”
Yet Mrs Neaves talked kindly to him for all that when she met him on the quarter-deck; but she never alluded to the dark cloud that hung so threateningly over his life. The more she talked to him, the more she believed in his innocence, and the more she liked him, although she tried hard not to.
Matty was Reginald’s almost constant companion, and many an otherwise lonely hour she helped to cheer and shorten.
He had another companion, however—his Bible. All hope for this world had fled, and he endeavoured now to make his peace with the God whom he had so often offended and sinned against.
Captain Dickson and he often sat together amidships or on the quarter-deck, and the good skipper of the unfortunate Wolverine used to talk about all they should do together when the cloud dissolved into thin air, and Reginald was once more free.
“But, ah, Dickson,” said the prisoner, “that cloud will not dissolve. It is closed aboard of me now, but it will come lower and lower, and then—it will burst, and I shall be no more. No, no, dear friend, I appreciate the kindness of your motives in trying to cheer me, but my hopes of happiness are now centred in the Far Beyond.”
If a man in his terrible position could ever be said to experience pleasure at all, Reginald did when the four honest sailors came to see him, as they never failed to do, daily. Theirs was heart-felt pity. Their remarks might have been a little rough, but they were kindly meant, and the consolation they tried to give was from the heart.
“How is it with you by this time?” McGregor said one day. “You mustn’t mope, ye know.”