‘How is it with you, Tom?’
‘This coolness and freshness and moonlight—it is heaven after the hell below. My brave heart, my beloved girl, how is it with you?’
‘Well; I am happy. I am with you. Our time is coming. In our new home all this will be no more than a horrid dream.’
‘A dream!’ said he, with fierceness in his whisper. ‘It is no dream to be ruined and have one’s heart broken. They have made a devil of me. I am no longer fit for you. You don’t know my heart.’
‘Whatever you are, I am. If they have made you a devil I will be a devil too. I am yours and one with you, and live for nothing but for you. Ask me to set this ship on fire to-night and I’ll do it.’
‘Ay, yours is the true woman’s spirit. I have no right to such a love. It is too noble for a wretch. Don’t let them ruin two lives. Curse them! See what they have made of me! I would to God you were not here.’
‘Oh, Tom!’
‘Ay, but to see you dragging the dirty burthen of the cuddy along the deck—to think of my proud and beautiful girl masquerading as a boy—ordered about by wretches who would be glad to clean her doorsteps and windows at home—and for a convict! But you know I am innocent.’
‘Whisper softly,’ said I, marking a note of bitter temper, a tone as of ferocity in his speech. It hissed in his feverishly rapid whispers and seemed as a revelation to me of a change of nature. ‘Do not gesticulate; the sentry at the head of the poop-ladder seems to be watching us. I have settled it thus: On our arrival I will take steps to qualify as a landholder, and you shall come to me. Leave me to act and keep up your heart, and do not say you wish I was not here.’
‘This ship will never arrive!’ said he.