“Why did Captain Spike abandon you, Jack; you have never told me that.”
“Because he fancied another. And ever since that time he has been fancying others, instead of remembering me. Had he got you, Miss Rose, I think he would have been content for the rest of his days.”
“Be certain, Jack, I should never have consented to marry Captain Spike.”
“You're well out of his hands,” answered Jack, sighing heavily, which was the most feminine thing she had done during the whole conversation, “well out of his hands—and God be praised it is so. He should have died, before I would let him carry you off the island—husband or no husband.”
“It might have exceeded your power to prevent it under other circumstances, Jack.”
Rose now continued looking out of the window in silence. Her thoughts reverted to her aunt and Biddy, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered the love of one, and the fidelity of the other. Their horrible fate had given her a shock that, at first, menaced her with a severe fit of illness; but her strong, good sense, and excellent constitution, both sustained by her piety and Harry's manly tenderness, had brought her through the danger, and left her, as the reader now sees her, struggling with her own griefs, in order to be of use to the still more unhappy woman who had so singularly become her friend and companion.
The reader will readily have anticipated that Jack Tier had early made the females on board the Swash her confidants. Rose had known the outlines of her history from the first few days they were at sea together, which is the explanation of the visible intimacy that had caused Mulford so much surprise. Jack's motive in making his revelations might possibly have been tinctured with jealousy, but a desire to save one as young and innocent as Rose was at its bottom. Few persons but a wife would have supposed our heroine could have been in any danger from a lover like Spike; but Jack saw him with the eyes of her own youth, and of past recollections, rather than with those of truth. A movement of the wounded man first drew Rose from the window. Drying her eyes hastily, she turned toward him, fancying she might prove the better nurse of the two, notwithstanding Jack's greater interest in the patient.
“What place is this—and why am I here?” demanded Spike, with more strength of voice than could have been expected, after all that had passed. “This is not a cabin—not the Swash—it looks like a hospital.”
“It is a hospital, Captain Spike,” said Rose, gently drawing near the bed; “you have been hurt, and have been brought to Key West, and placed in the hospital. I hope you feel better, and that you suffer no pain.”
“My head is n't right—I do n't know—everything seems turned round with me—perhaps it will all come out as it should. I begin to remember—where is my brig?”