ere no longer my only stimulus. I was my poor self again; it was
my own little life, and no other, that I wanted to go on living; and
yet I felt vaguely there was some special thing I wished to live for,
something that had not been very long in my ken; something that had
perhaps nerved and strengthened me all these hours. What, then, could it
be? I could not think.

For moments or for minutes I wondered stupidly, dazed as I was. Then
I remembered--and the tears gushed to my eyes. How could I ever have
forgotten? I deserved it all, all, all! To think that many a time we
must have sat together on this very coop! I kissed its blistering edge
at the thought, and my tears ran afresh, as though they never would
stop.

Ah! how I thought of her as that cruel day's most cruel sun climbed
higher and higher in the flawless flaming vault. A pocket-handkerchief
of all things had remained in my trousers pocket through fire and water;
I knotted it on the old childish plan, and kept it ever drenched upon
the head that had its own fever to endure as well. Eva Denison! Eva
Denison! I was talking to her in the past, I was talking to her in the
future, and oh! how different were the words, the tone! Yes, I hated
myself for having forgotten her; but I hated God for having given her
back to my tortured brain; it made life so many thousandfold more sweet,
and death so many thousandfold more bitter.

She was saved in the gig. Sweet Jesus, thanks for that! But I--I was
dying a lingering death in mid-ocean; she would never know how I loved
her, I, who could only lecture her when I had her at my side.

Dying? No--no--not yet! I must live--live--live--to tell my darling how
I had loved her all the time. So I forced myself from my lethargy of
despair and grief; and this thought, the sweetest thought of all my
life, may or may not have been my unrealized stimulus ere now; it was in
very deed my most conscious and perpetual spur henceforth until the end.

From this onward, while my sense stood by me, I was practical,
resourceful, alert. It was now high-noon, and I had eaten nothing since
dinner the night before. How clearly I saw the long saloon table, only
laid, however, abaft the mast; the glittering glass, the cool white
napery, the poor old dried dessert in the green dishes! Earlier, this
had occupied my mind an hour; now I dismissed it in a moment; there was
Eva, I must live for her; there must be ways of living at least a day or
two withou