“Elsewhere!” repeated the other, in a tone of disappointment. “Ay, the sturdy despot is to be found in every sea; and hundreds of ships, and ships of size too, are to be seen scorching in the calms of the equator. It was idle to give the subject a second thought.”
“You have been pleased to observe something that has escaped my ear.”
The Rover started; for he had rather muttered than spoken the preceding sentence aloud. Casting a swift and searching glance around him, as it might be to assure himself that no impertinent listener had found means to pry into the mysteries of a mind he seldom saw fit to lay open to the free examination of his associates, he regained his self-possession on the instant, and resumed the discourse with a manner as undisturbed as if it had received no interruption.
“Yes, I had forgotten that your sex is often as timorous as it is fair,” he added, with a smile so insinuating and gentle, that the governess cast an involuntary and uneasy glance towards her charge, “or I might have been earlier with my assurance of safety.”
“It is welcome even now.”
“And your young and gentle friend,” he continued, bowing openly to Gertrude, though he still addressed his words to the governess; “her slumbers will not be the heavier for what has passed.”
“The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow.”
“There is a holy and unsearchable mystery in that truth: The innocent pillow their heads in quiet! Would to God the guilty might find some refuge, too, against the sting of thought! But we live in a world, and a time, when men cannot be sure even of themselves.”
He then paused, and looked about him, with a smile so haggard, that the anxious governess unconsciously drew nigher to her pupil, like one who sought, and was willing to yield, protection against the uncertain designs of a maniac. Her visiter, however, remained in a silence so long and deep, that she felt the necessity of removing the awkward embarrassment of their situation, by speaking herself.
“Do you find Mr Wilder as much inclined to mercy as yourself?” she asked. “There would be merit in his forbearance, since he appeared to be the particular object of the anger of the mutineers.”