"And down with the 'tarnal imps below!" added Badger, striking his huge splay foot on the deck, as he relieved the wheel, notwithstanding his brevet rank.
The headland named by the officer of the corvette is the most southern point of the long narrow island of Madagascar; but no sooner had all sounds indicative of her presence died away, than Captain Phillips and his companions, who had listened to the colloquy above, as if spell-bound, broke into expressions of bitter regret that they had not all made a scramble on deck, and risked death or anything, that some, at least, might have been saved! but these ideas came too late, and they could only hope for a better chance next time; so true it is, as some one says, that regrets for the past, and dreams for the future, make up the whole career of human life, at sea as well as on shore.
CHAPTER II.
THE FORTITUDE OF ETHEL.
On the evening succeeding this day, Morley and Mr. Basset spent some hours with Ethel and Rose in the little cabin, while their friends kept their anxious watch in the outer one, over the skylight of which the sail was yet drawn. That which had been hung over the taffrail was hauled in; but the use it had been put to prevented Captain Phillips, on this occasion, from chalking on a black board the demand for succour which he meant to exhibit from the cabin windows, if a feasible opportunity with a passing sail occurred.
There was but little conversation with the Bassets, so the time passed in sad glances and sadder sighs; but Ethel seemed to have more confidence, more fortitude, and more hope for the future than any of those about her.
Old Nance Folgate lay on her bed, where, from time to time, she sighed over the peaceful security of her cottage in a green lane at Acton-Rennel, and groaned heavily at the reflection that she would never see it any more, or, perhaps, the solid earth again.
Rose sat on a hassock on the cabin-floor, with her pretty head resting, child-like, on her father's knee, while his hands were crossed caressingly above it.
Ethel half drooped her head on Morley's shoulder, and so they sat, buried in thought and anxiety, each for the others rather than themselves, for "the passion of love and parental affection are counterparts of each other," says Reid; "and, meeting with a proper return, are the sources of all domestic felicity, the greatest, next to that of a good conscience, which this world affords. But its joys and griefs are fitter to be sung than said."
As Mr. Basset gazed upon his two daughters, and summed up the dangers which menaced them, how bitterly he repented that he had not remained in England, even with the wreck of his fortune, and sought subsistence there in any way, rather than have stooped to the false pride which made him seek that colonial appointment, and lured him away from home.