“God grant it! It may be imprudent to be longer silent.—Gertrude, frightful, horrible suspicions have been engendered in my mind by what we have this day witnessed.”
The cheek of the maiden blanched, and the pupil of her soft eye contracted, with alarm, while she seemed to demand an explanation with every disturbed lineament of her countenance.
“I have long been familiar with the usages of a vessel of war,” continued the governess, who had only paused in order to review the causes of her suspicions in her own mind; “but never have I seen such customs as, each hour, unfold themselves in this vessel.”
“Of what do you suspect her?”
The look of deep, engrossing, maternal anxiety, that the lovely interrogator received in reply to this question, might have startled one whose mind had been more accustomed to muse on the depravity of human nature than the spotless being who received it; but to Gertrude it conveyed no more than a general and vague sensation of alarm.
“Why do you thus regard me, my governess—my mother?” she exclaimed, bending forward, and laying a hand imploringly on the arm of the other, as if she would arouse her from a trance.
“Yes, I will speak: It is safer that you know the worst, than that your innocence should be liable to be abused. I distrust the character of this ship, and of all that belong to her.”
“All!” repeated her pupil, gazing fearfully, and a little wildly, around.
“Yes; of all”
“There may be wicked and evil-intentioned men n his Majesty’s fleet; but we are surely safe from them, since fear of punishment, if not fear of disgrace will be our protector.”