“And the trick has been practised before?”
“I confess it.—But I can linger no longer. In a few minutes, the tide will turn, and the inlet become impassable. Eudora, we must decide on the fortunes of this child. Shall he to the ocean again?—or shall he remain, to vary his life with a landsman’s chances?”
“Who and what is the boy?” gravely demanded the Alderman.
“One dear to both,” rejoined the free-trader “His father was my nearest friend, and his mother long watched the youth of Eudora. Until this moment, he has, been our mutual care,—he must now choose between us.”
“He will not quit me!” hastily interrupted the alarmed Eudora—“Thou art my adopted son, and none can guide thy young mind like me. Thou hast need of woman’s tenderness, Zephyr, and wilt not quit me?”
“Let the child be the arbiter of his own fate. I am credulous on the point of fortune, which is, at least, a happy belief for the contraband.”
“Then let him speak. Wilt remain here, amid these smiling fields, to ramble among yonder gay and sweetly-scented flowers?—or wilt thou back to the water, where all is vacant and without change?”
The boy looked wistfully into her anxious eye, and then he bent his own hesitating glance on the calm features of the free-trader.
“We can put to sea,” he said; “and when we make the homeward passage again, there will be many curious things for thee, Eudora!”
“But this may be the last opportunity to know the land of thy ancestors. Remember how terrible is the ocean in its anger, and how often the brigantine has been in danger of shipwreck!”