A few words sufficed to gratify the curiosity of both as to the intervening years of their life. Banning had fallen into dissipated habits, and by degrees come to that which he now was. He had sought the island to escape the pursuit of his creditors and the police, and he spoke truly when he said that this was his first step towards the life of a highway robber. Strange fortune had thus thrown them together again, but such are its wayward freaks that nothing is impossible.
Fanny stood by his couch to the last, and bade him hope. He clasped the hands of Lovell and his wife warmly in his own, the very individuals he would have sacrificed to his base purpose but a short time before, and soon breathed his last.
Turning her eyes at this moment she beheld the good wife of the cottage in the arms of her husband, who had just returned, and was walking towards the place where she sat with the children.
No sooner did she distinctly observe him than she at once recognized him, while he on his part also seemed embarrassed with inward remembrances. At length as if the light had broke upon him all at once, he exclaimed, warmly pressing her hand.
‘Captain Channing! I bid you welcome.’
Reader, it was the pardoned Englishman whom Fanny had spared on board the Constance!
After a few days of happy fellowship and pleasant association, Lovell and Fanny sought again the deck of the Vision.
It was scarcely three weeks from the day that the Vision left the Isle of Man before she was riding at anchor quietly in the little harbor of Lynn.
Fanny and Lovell had both had enough of adventure, at least for a while, but nevertheless they kept the yacht in readiness for frequent excursions on the element to which both had become so much attached. Their fortune was ample, and there was no necessity for them to deny themselves this or any other desirable amusement that fancy might suggest.
It was while on an excursion with her husband, and far out of sight of land, that Fanny gave birth to her first child, a noble and robust boy, whose maritime birth no doubt influenced his choice of a profession. The Vision was known in our harbor even until a few years since, and we are told that not long since she was refitted and sold into the Venezulian navy, being renowned for speed and excellent sea qualities. She is still employed there, with a small armament and crew, as a revenue cutter or a species of guarda costa.