“Chance made me an unseen listener to their plan, and—I know not but I forget my duty to my prince! but, John, 'tis asking too much of a weak woman, to require that she shall see the man whom she once viewed with eyes of favor sacrificed, when a word of caution, given in season, might enable him to avoid the danger!”
“Once viewed with an eye of favor! Is it then so?” said the Pilot, speaking in a vacant manner. “But, Alice, heard ye the force of the ships, or their names? Give me their names, and the first lord of your British admiralty shall not give so true an account of their force as I will furnish from this list of my own.”
“Their names were certainly mentioned,” said Alice, with tender melancholy; “but the name of one far nearer to me was ringing in my ears, and has driven them from my mind.”
“You are the same good Alice I once knew! And my name was mentioned? What said they of the Pirate? Had his arm stricken a blow that made them tremble in their abbey? Did they call him coward, girl?”
“It was mentioned in terms that pained my heart as I listened; for it is never too easy a task to forget the lapse of years, nor are the feelings of youth to be easily eradicated.”
“Ay, there is luxury in knowing that, with all their affected abuse, the slaves dread me in their secret holds!” exclaimed the Pilot, pacing in front of his listener with quick steps. “This it is to be marked, among men, above all others in your calling! I hope yet to see the day when the third George shall start at the sound of that name, even within the walls of his palace.”
Alice Dunscombe heard him in deep and mortified silence. It was too evident that a link in the chain of their sympathies was broken, and that the weakness in which she had been unconsciously indulging was met by no correspondent emotions in him. After sinking her head for a moment on her bosom, she arose with a little more than her usual air of meekness, and recalled the Pilot to a sense of her presence, by saying, in a yet milder voice:
“I have now communicated all that it can profit you to know, and it is meet that we separate.”
“What, thus soon?” he cried, starting and taking her hand. “This is but a short interview, Alice, to precede so long a separation.”
“Be it short, or be it long, it must now end,” she replied. “Your companions are on the eve of departure, and I trust you would be one of the last who would wish to be deserted. If ye do visit England again, I hope it may be with altered sentiments, so far as regards her interests. I wish ye peace, John, and the blessings of God, as ye may be found to deserve them.”