One day at dinner we happened to talk of swimming.  “I think,” said Talbot, “that my friend Frank is as good a hand at that as any of us.  Do you remember when you swam away from the frigate at Spithead, to pay a visit to your friend, Mrs Melpomene, at Point?”

“I do,” said I, “and also how generously you showered the musket-balls about my ears for the same.”

“Your escape from either drowning or shooting on that occasion, among many others,” said the commander, “makes me augur something more serious of your future destiny.”

“That may be,” said I; “but I dispute the legality of your act, in trying to kill me before you knew who I was, or what I was about.  I might have been mad, for what you knew; or I might have belonged to some other ship; but, in any event, had you killed me, and had my body been found, a coroner’s inquest would have gone very hard with you, and a jury still worse.”

“I should have laughed at them,” said Talbot.

“You might have found it no laughing matter,” said I.

“How?” replied Talbot, “what are sentinels placed for, and loaded with ball?”

“To defend the ship,” said I; “to give warning of approaching danger; to prevent men going out of the ship without leave; but never to take away the life of a man unless in defence of their own, or when the safety of the king’s ship demands it.”

“I deny your conclusion,” said Talbot; “the articles of war denounce death to all deserters.”

“True,” said I, “they do, and also to many other crimes; but those crimes must first of all be proved before a court-martial.  Now you cannot prove that I was deserting, and if you could, you had not the power to inflict death on me unless I was going towards the enemy.  I own I was disobeying your orders, but even that would not have subjected me to more than a slight punishment, while your arbitrary act would have deprived the king, as I flatter myself, of a loyal, and not a useless subject; and if my body had not been found, no good could have accrued to the service from the severity of example.  On the contrary, many would have supposed I had escaped, and been encouraged to make the same attempt.”

“I am very sorry now,” said Talbot, “that I did not lower down a boat to send after you; however, it has been a comfort to me since to reflect that the marines missed you.”

This ended the subject:  we walked the deck a little, talked of sweethearts, shaped the course for the night to make Fayal, which we were not far from, and then returned to our beds.

Falling into a sound sleep, it was natural that the conversation of the evening should have dwelt on my mind, and a strange mixture of disjointed thoughts, a compound of reason and insanity, haunted me till the morning.  Trinidad and Emily, the Nine-Pin Rock, and the mysterious Eugenia, with her supposed son; the sinking wreck, and the broken schooner, all appeared separately or together.