“After her birth, his better nature, or what remained of it, seemed to awake, and he grew tired and sick of the evil life he led. He had glutted his vengeance sufficiently already: and she was continually urging him to give it up; and now that time had calmed his feelings concerning the marriage of Lady Maude, he wished to return to England and seek out his other child! Such was his continual resolve, but still nearly two years elapsed before he carried it into effect. At the end of that time he gave up his command of the ‘Diable Rouge’ to the chief mate, and with his wife and little dark-eyed daughter Rita, set out for England. No one knew him there; time and a tropical sun had changed him wonderfully, so he was free to pursue his investigations unmolested. He made every inquiry about his mother and son; but, of course, they were in vain, since long before, they had left for this place.
“But Fate, as if not tired of showering blows upon him, had still another in reserve for him. His little daughter Rita was lost one day in the great wilderness of London, and he never saw or heard of her after.”
Captain Reginald paused for a moment and averted his face, while Ray continued to listen with breathless interest.
“His wife nearly went crazy,” continued Captain Reginald at last, lifting his head and speaking very rapidly; “she was crazy for a time, and he—he grew desperate. He did not rejoin the pirates—his very soul loathed them—but he became a reckless man. He roamed the world over, smuggled, ran into danger, exposed himself to death every day—and lived through all. His wife accompanied him in every danger; she never left his side during all these long, long, sorrowful years. Fate, Providence—a superior power of some sort—drove him to this coast; he found this cave, made it one of his rendezvous, and often came here, without dreaming that his mother and son were within a stone’s throw of him. Truly, as I said, this world is full of paper walls, when mother, and father, and son dwell so near, and never until now met.”
He paused and came over to Ray. He started to his feet and confronted the strange narrator with wonder-wide eyes.
“Restored now!” he said, wildly. “And have they met at last?”
“They have,” replied the outlaw, with a strange, sad smile.
“My father! my father! where is he?” cried Ray, half delirious with all these revelations.
“He stands beside you! I am your father!” was the thrilling answer.