Galloon had followed me into the cabin, and bore me company. He sat upon his chair and gazed at me affectionately when I talked to him. Often had I talked out my mind to Galloon. Often in quiet, lonely watches, during the outward passage, had I held his ears, while his fore paws rested upon my knees, and given loose to the imaginations which the prospect of the promise of realizing thirty thousand dollars raised up in me. And then, again, I loved this dog as the savior of my life. Never could I look into his affectionate, liquid, intelligent eye, but that I would think to myself, and often say aloud to him, dog as he was, a poor four-footed beast, soulless, as it is commonly supposed, of affections to be best won by kicks and curses—that he had, by saving my life, become in a sense the creator of a man, the renewer of a being deemed by his own species immortal in spirit, so that whatever I did a dog would be answerable for; the existence of all passions in me, my pleasures and hopes and griefs; nay, my marriage, should ever I marry, and the children I begot, would be all chargeable upon a poor dog, God wot! a strange thing to reflect on by one who has been made to believe, all his life, that he is only a little lower than the angels, and yet true as the blessed sunlight itself; for if it had not been for Galloon, long ago I should have been—what? the roe of a herring, perhaps, the liver of a cod—instead of a man, capable of looking back, through a long avenue of years, and of moralizing thus.
When I came on deck I found Antonio standing in front of Greaves, cap in hand, translating for him and the lady. On my appearing, Miss Aurora exclaimed quickly and eagerly to the Spaniard, who turning to me, said, squinting as he spoke:
“The señorita has met you before.”
“Where?” said I.
“At Lima, señor.”
“Never was at Lima in my life.”
He translated; she made a little dignified gesture of impatience.
“The lady says that she has met you at the house of——” and here Antonio named a Spanish merchant of Lima.
“No,” said I, looking at her and shaking my head.
“Yes,” she cried in English, and spoke rapidly to Antonio.