y I should be ashamed to admit that
in such fashion was my brain trying to fool my soul; but so it was.
Remorse? I should have been worn with remorse, I know; but I was not. I
tried to grieve for my hasty judgment of Captain Blaise: and I did. But
for the Governor's son, not a qualm. I, too, like Captain Blaise, had
become the creature of hereditary instincts and overpowering emotion.
Never in all my life before had I thought that any sin or shortcoming of
mine was ever to be anybody's business but my own. My salvation lay in
the future, which, now that my conscience was awakened, I would have
only myself to censure if it did not become what I wished.

But these serious thoughts were of previous days. This morning I was to
have some little composition ready for her when she came down. I turned
to my paper and pencil and began to write. But thoughts, such thoughts
as I conceived would please her, came slowly. My new conscience or it
may have been the voices of the quarter-deck,--her father's questions,
Captain Blaise's muffled answers, her exclamations of delight and
wonder,--all these diverted me. In despair I tried to catch, as I
usually could, what Captain Blaise was saying, but to-day he spoke in so
low a tone that I could not quite.

Ubbo came down for a chart, a particular chart which Captain Blaise has
always kept apart from the others. I pointed out to him where he would
find it. And my eye followed his figure up the cabin steps. In a
sailor's costume Ubbo was proud but perspiring, though devotion shone
out in every drop of perspiration.

[Illustration: After a long look I saw that he did not resume his
narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him]

Through the skylight I saw Captain Blaise take the chart from Ubbo,
unroll and scan it. "I was right. Yes, here's the spot." He was
addressing Shiela. "In red ink, see, and here's about where we are
now--not ten miles from here, north by east."

Shiela was bending over the chart when "Sail-ho!" rang out from the
lookout in the foretop. He had a grand voice, that man on watch.

With one hand Captain Blaise held the chart so Shiela still could read
it; with the other he reached through the skylight opening for his long
glass. After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By
that I knew that the stranger was troubling him.

Shiela came below to see me. The traces of tears were in her eyes.

"It's a large ship to the northward," sh