Indifference—indifference, as cold and as icy as death, indifference, such as nature can admit but only when every fibre of feeling is burnt into hard callousness by the searing iron of some deep unpardonable offence, had wrapped its clammy folds around his heart.
Reader, have you ever felt the absorbing love that sank and merged your existence into that of a cherished object, and have you ever felt the gall of sneering ridicule from her? If you have, then you know the feeling that possessed the pirate captain. Have you ever demanded bread from a parent whom you may have loved to excess and received a stone, or have you ever asked water from the author of your existence and received poison? Then you can fancy the captain’s sentiments, or have you ever, while straining your industry and energy to the utmost, been ground down to misery and despair by him from whom nature taught you to expect love and protection, while he himself was rioting in profuse abundance? if you have, and we trust heaven has always preserved you from such a bitter experience, you can then realize the feeling which existed in the bosom of the pirate captain.
“Make sail,” the captain said to the officer of the watch, after he had cast a glance on the horizon.
The schooner which, during all this time, was lying to the wind under only a half of her mainsail and jib, was immediately put under the press of all her sails. She had shot a-head for some yards, when the captain gave orders to change the course.
“Ready about.”
“Ready about,” was echoed forwards in the firm disciplined tones of the sailors.
“Hard a-lee.”
“Hard a-lee,” the man at the helm answered.
The helm was put down, and the long snake-like schooner bore up gracefully to the wind, the sails fluttered for a moment, and she leaned smoothly on the other tack.
Like a dolphin she cut through the water; the spray played about her bows, and the waves barely touched her sides as she glided through them.