"Hamilton, and she lives still! you said you knew her," repeated Mordaunt, suddenly springing up and speaking in a tone of animation, that bewildered Edward almost as much as his former agitation. "Speak of her, young man; tell me something of her. Oh, it is long since I have heard her name."
"Did you know my aunt? I have never heard her mention your name,
Lieutenant Mordaunt."
"Very likely not," he replied, and a faint smile played round his lip, creating an expression which made young Fortescue start, for the features seemed familiar to him. "It was only in my boyhood that I knew her, and she was kind to me. We do not easily forget the associations of our boyhood, my young friend, particularly when manhood has been a dreary blank, or tinged with pain. In my hours of slavery, the smile and look of Emmeline Manvers has often haunted my waking and my sleeping dreams; but she is married—is in all probability a happy wife and loving mother; prosperity is around her, and it is most likely she has forgotten the boy to whom her kindness was so dear."
"Hours of slavery?" asked Edward, for those words had alone riveted his attention. "Can you, a free and British sailor, have ever been a slave?"
"Even so, my young friend; for seven years I languished in the loathsome dungeons of Algiers, and the last sixteen years have been a slave."
Edward grasped his hand with an uncontrollable impulse, while at the same moment he clenched his sword, and his countenance expressed the powerful indignation of his young and gallant spirit, though words for the moment he had none. Lieutenant Mordaunt again smiled—that smile which by some indefinable power inspired Edward with affection and esteem.
"I am free now, my gallant boy," he said; "free as if the galling fetters of slavery had never bowed down my neck. Another day you shall hear more. Now gratify me by some account of your aunt; speak of her—tell me if she have children—if her husband still lives. If Mrs. Hamilton is still the same gentle, affectionate being—the same firm, unflinching character, when duty called her, as the Emmeline Manvers it was once my joy to know."
With an animation that again riveted the eyes of Lieutenant Mordaunt on his countenance, Edward eagerly entered on the subject. No other could have been dearer to him; Mordaunt could have fixed on few which would thus have called forth the eloquence of his young companion. Sailor as he was, truly enthusiastic in his profession, yet home to Edward still possessed invincible attractions, and the devoted affection, gratitude, and reverence he felt for his aunt appeared to increase with his years. Neither Percy nor Herbert could have loved her more. He spoke as he felt; he told of all he owed her, and not only himself but his orphan sister; he said that as a mother she had been to them both, that never once had she made the slightest difference between them and her own children. He painted in vivid colours the domestic joys of Oakwood, the affectionate harmony that reigned there, till Mordaunt felt his eyes glisten with emotion, and ere that conversation ceased, all that affection which for many a long and weary year had pined for some one on which to expend its force, now centred in the noble youth of whose preservation he had been so strangely and providentially an instrument. To Edward it was not in the least strange, that any one who had once known his aunt, it mattered not how many years previous, should still retain a lively remembrance of her, and wish to know more concerning her, and his feelings were strongly excited towards one, whose interest in all that concerned her was evidently so great. His first letter to his family, which he enclosed in one to his captain, spoke very much of Lieutenant Mordaunt, wondering that his aunt had never mentioned one who remembered her so well. This letter, as we know, was never received, and the next he wrote was too hurried to enter into particulars, except those that related to himself alone. When he again wrote home, he had become so attached and so used to Mordaunt, that he fancied he must be as well known to his family as himself, and though he mentioned his name repeatedly, he did not think of inquiring anything concerning him.
The able activity as a sailor, the graceful, courteous manner of Edward as a man, soon won him the hearts of Captain Bartholomew and all his crew. Ever the first when there was anything to be done on board or on shore, lively, high-spirited, and condescending, his appearance on deck after any absence was generally acknowledged with respect. The various characters thus presented to his notice in the Spanish crew, the many ports he touched at, afforded him continual and exciting amusement, although his thoughts very often lingered on his darling "Gem," with the ardent desire to be once more doing his duty on her decks. But amid all these changing scenes, Edward and his friend, diverse as were their ages and apparently their dispositions, became almost inseparable. An irresistible impulse urged Edward repeatedly to talk to him of his home, till Mordaunt became intimately acquainted with every member of the family. Of Herbert, Edward would speak with enthusiasm; he little knew, poor fellow, that the cousin whose character he almost venerated was gone to his last home, that he should never see him more. Letters detailing that melancholy event had been forwarded to the Gem, arriving there just one week after the young sailor's disappearance; and, when informed of his safety, Captain Seaforth, then on his way to England, had no opportunity of forwarding them to him. His repeated mention of Herbert in his letters home, his anxious desire to hear something of him, were most painful to his family, and Ellen was more than ever anxious he should receive the account ere he returned.
Among other subjects discussed between them, Mordaunt once asked Edward who now bore the title of Lord Delmont, and had appeared somewhat agitated when told the title was now extinct, and had become so from the melancholy death of the promising young nobleman on whom it had devolved.