He had awakened as from a dream, after so many years of aberration of intellect.  He was no longer the sincere Catholic that he had been; for he never thought of religion without his Amine’s cruel fate being brought to his recollection.  Still he clung on to the relic—­he believed in that—­and that only.  It was his god—­his creed—­his everything—­the passport for himself and for his father into the next world—­the means whereby he should join his Amine—­and for hours would he remain holding in his hand that object so valued—­gazing upon it—­recalling every important event in his life, from the death of his poor mother, and his first sight of Amine; to the last dreadful scene.  It was to him a journal of his existence, and on it were fixed all his hopes for the future.

“When! oh when is it to be accomplished!” was the constant subject of his reveries.  “Blessed, indeed, will be the day when I leave this world of hate, and seek that other in which ‘the weary are at rest.’”

The vessel on board of which Philip was embarked as a passenger was the Nostra Senora da Monte, a brig of three hundred tons, bound for Lisbon.  The captain was an old Portuguese, full of superstition, and fond of arrack—­a fondness rather unusual with the people of his nation.  They sailed from Goa, and Philip was standing abaft, and sadly contemplating the spire of the Cathedral, in which he had last parted with his wife, when his elbow was touched, and he turned round.

“Fellow-passenger, again!” said a well-known voice—­it was that of the pilot Schriften.

There was no alteration in the man’s appearance; he showed no marks of declining years; his one eye glared as keenly as ever.

Philip started, not only at the sight of the man, but at the reminiscences which his unexpected appearance brought to his mind.  It was but for a second, and he was again calm and pensive.

“You here again, Schriften?” observed Philip.  “I trust your appearance forebodes the accomplishment of my task.”

“Perhaps it does,” replied the pilot; “we both are weary.”

Philip made no reply; he did not even ask Schriften in what manner he had escaped from the fort; he was indifferent about it; for he felt that the man had a charmed life.

“Many are the vessels that have been wrecked, Philip Vanderdecken, and many the souls summoned to their account by meeting with your father’s ship, while you have been so long shut up,” observed the pilot.

“May our next meeting with him be more fortunate—­may it be the last!” replied Philip.

“No, no! rather may he fulfil his doom, and sail till the day of judgment,” replied the pilot with emphasis.

“Vile caitiff!  I have a foreboding that you will not have your detestable wish.  Away!—­leave me! or you shall find, that although this head is blanched by misery, this arm has still some power.”