And, just as the first morning light came streaming through the window, the Captain heard the old man say for the last time—
"O Lamb of God, I come."
And the next minute all was still, and their long watch was ended.
[CHAPTER V]
THE SAFE OPENED
BEFORE Captain Fortescue left his father's room that morning, he took up the bunch of keys on which the old man's eyes had rested with such anxious care, and which were still lying on a small table near his bed. He slipped them at once into his pocket, for he did not know who might come into that room, and he wished to feel assured that the safe would not be tampered with.
But, eager though he was to discover what secret the letter addressed to him contained, it was not until late in the day that he went into the room of death, that he might open the safe, and find the envelope which his father had described to him. He had been much moved by his father's death; and, in his intense refinement of feeling, he shrank from too quickly bringing to light that which might possibly reveal to him something in his father's past life, which would bring discredit on his memory, and might cause him to think less kindly and tenderly of the dead.
It was the old man's intense anxiety that the paper should not be read in his lifetime, which led Captain Fortescue to surmise that the contents were in some way not creditable to him.
But in the evening, when all arrangements for the funeral were made, and the servants were below at their supper, he crept with a candle in his hand into the room of death. He felt almost as if he were a thief, as he crossed the floor, and passed the silent form on the bed.
His father had never allowed any one to open that safe. In the days of his childhood he had been accustomed to look at it with awe and wonder, as he speculated on the mysteries it might contain. Now—he was going to open it, and the hand that had so carefully guarded its contents was lying cold and lifeless on the bed. He felt almost as if he would hear his father's protesting voice, as he fitted the key in the lock. He even glanced back at the bed, as if to assure himself that there was no movement there.