The door was quickly opened, and Alice, with surprise and pleasure beaming in her great brown eyes, stood before him.
She looked so beautiful in her excitement, that Harry stood for a moment staring upon her like one under the influence of a spell. As the long lashes of those innocent eyes gradually drooped under his admiring glance, he was unable to resist the impulse that sprung up within him. He threw an arm around the pretty waist, and drawing the unresisting girl to his bosom, kissed her with a fervor peculiar to seafaring men.
She gently disengaged herself from his embrace. “Oh! Harry, I am so glad to see you. I have been so frightened! Those terrible noises! What are they trying to do now? They are at the cabin-door!”
“To break it open,” replied Harry.
“Who? the mutineers?”
“Yes.”
“Why, I—I thought, when I saw you, that all this was over—that you and your gallant crew had come aboard and persuaded those misguided men to return to their duty.”
“I came alone,” said the harpooner, and he then proceeded to make her acquainted with those occurrences of which the reader has already been informed.
“Dear Harry,” faltered the young girl, “how you must have suffered. I am sorry, now, that you came aboard.”
“Sorry?”