is, but she sighed very heavily. As for Spike
himself, he was silent for some little time, not only from exhaustion,
but because he suffered pain from his wound. The needle was diligently
but awkwardly plied in this pause.

Spike's ideas were still a little confused; but a silence and rest of
a quarter of an hour cleared them materially. At the end of that time
he again asked for water. When he had drank, and Jack was once more
seated, with his side-face toward him, at work with the needle, the
captain gazed long and intently at this strange woman. It happened
that the profile of Jack preserved more of the resemblance to her
former self, than the full face; and it was this resemblance that now
attracted Spike's attention, though not the smallest suspicion of the
truth yet gleamed upon him. He saw something that was familiar, though
he could not even tell what that something was, much less to what or
whom it bore any resemblance. At length he spoke.

"I was told that Jack Tier was dead," he said; "that he took the
fever, and was in his grave within eight-and-forty hours after we
sailed. That was what they told me of _him_."

"And what did they tell you of your own wife, Stephen Spike. She that
you left ashore at the time Jack was left?"

"They said she did not die for three years later. I heard of her death
at New Or_leens_, three years later."

"And how could you leave her ashore--she, your true and lawful wife?"

"It was a bad thing," answered Spike, who, like all other mortals,
regarded his own past career, now that he stood on the edge of the
grave, very differently from what he had regarded it in the hour of
his health and strength. "Yes, it _was_ a very bad thing; and I wish
it was ondone. But it is too late now. She died of the fever,
too--that's some comfort; had she died of a broken-heart, I could not
have forgiven myself. Molly was not without her faults--great faults,
I considered them; but, on the whole, Molly was a good creatur'."

"You liked her, then, Stephen Spike?"

"I can truly say that when I married Molly, and old Capt. Swash put
his da'ghter's hand into mine, that the woman wasn't living who was
better in my judgment, or handsomer in my eyes."

"Ay, ay--when you _married_ her; but how was it a'terwards. When you
was tired of her, and saw another that was fairer in your eyes?"

"I desarted her; and God has punished me for the sin! Do you know,
Jack, that luck has never been with me since th