"Do not think of these things," whispered Morley, anxiously; "it is well she is not with us."
"Even her loss was merciful, though it nearly broke my heart, for all this would have killed her," said Mr. Basset, in a low voice.
"Oh, when will it end!—when will it end!" sobbed Rose.
"When we reeve some of those fellows up to the yard-arm, in the loop of a stout line," said Dr. Heriot. "I can't help feeling assured that we shall weather them, yet, and my countryman, Morrison, who, perhaps, has the gift of the second sight, among his other accomplishments, is of the same opinion," added Heriot, with a pleasant laugh to raise their spirits.
Ethel felt safe comparatively—protected and restored; but at what a price—a human life! The life of that misguided being who first cast a shadow on her path.
She recalled his last words and forgave him all, for his closing act had been one of devotion towards herself. But for him, she might, or must have been, destroyed. The imagination of all from which he had saved her made her shudder in her soul, and froze her very marrow! Poor Hawkshaw, she might almost call him now, as he had gone so summarily to his dread account, gashed with many a wound, and cast into the sea, without prayer, or shroud, or grave—cast with all his sins and errors on his head and on his soul!
She shuddered, we say, as she thought fearfully of these dire things, and clasped more tightly the kind hands of those who sat beside her.
Morley, too, felt that he could freely forgive Hawkshaw now; for his nature was brave, generous, and gentle, and he wondered whether, when dying, that unfortunate wretch had felt what he endured—first, when he was flung over Acton Chine; and, second, when the shattered wreck of the Princess parted, and he found himself, as he believed, drowning in the water—the intense rapidity with which thought and memory rushed through his soul, as he hung for a moment between two lives, one to come, and one that seemed passing away—how all the loves and memories, faces of friends and foes, sins of omission and commission, all the errors and shortcomings of his existence flashed with the rapidity of light upon his maddened mind; bodily suffering, on those two occasions, he had none—it was all mental, and the most acute of its kind.
Had Hawkshaw felt all this when the death-shot rang in his ears, and the assassins' knives were clashing in his body?
He must have felt this emotion; and Morley, with that conviction, and the knowledge that he (Hawkshaw) had saved Ethel Basset at the price of his own unhappy existence, felt in his honest heart that he could freely forgive him all the past.