“She was very ill, and if we had remained longer on the sloop—but now—with nourishing food and your care, doctor, she will quickly regain her strength. Indeed, she is better already.”
“For the moment. But she is very much reduced and the symptoms are grave. A recurrence of the fever—”
“But such a fever is so easily cured. I know what you are hinting at, doctor. Yet I cannot think—You will not let her die. After surmounting so many dangers, and being so miraculously rescued, and with prospects so fair, it would be too cruel.”
“I will do my best, sir, you may be sure. But I thought it my duty to prepare you for the worst. The issue is with God.”
This is a part of my story on which I care not to dwell. Even yet I cannot think of it without grief and pain. My dear wife was taken from me. She died in my arms, her hand in mine, as sweetly and serenely as she had lived. But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time—such as it was—more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the field of battle.
Captain Bigelow had a great heart and a chivalrous nature. After Angela’s death he treated me more as a cherished son than as a casual guest. Before we reached Panama we were fast friends. He provided me with clothing and gave me money for my immediate wants, as to have attempted to dispose of any of my diamonds there, or at Chagres, might have exposed me to suspicion, possibly to danger. In acknowledgement of his kindness and as a souvenir of our friendship, I persuaded him to accept one of the finest stones in my collection, and we parted with mutual assurances of goodwill and not without hope of meeting again.
Ramon of course, went with me. Bill Yawl, equally of of course, I left behind. He had slung his hammock in the Constellation’s fo’castle, and became captain of the foretop.