He roused himself for the moment by main force—­strong in his dog-like fidelity to the admiral, though strong in nothing else—­and fought off the stupor of the drink.  He looked at the bed with steadier eyes and a clearer mind.  Magdalen’s precaution in returning it to its customary position presented it to him necessarily in the aspect of a bed which had never been moved from its place.  He next examined the counterpane carefully.  Not the faintest vestige appeared of the indentation which must have been left by footsteps passing over it.  There was the plain evidence before him—­the evidence recognizable at last by his own bewildered eyes—­that the admiral had never moved from his room.

“I’ll take the Pledge to-morrow!” mumbled old Mazey, in an outburst of grateful relief.  The next moment the fumes of the liquor floated back insidiously over his brain; and the veteran, returning to his customary remedy, paced the passage in zigzag as usual, and kept watch on the deck of an imaginary ship.

Soon after sunrise, Magdalen suddenly heard the grating of the key from outside in the lock of the door.  The door opened, and old Mazey re-appeared on the threshold.  The first fever of his intoxication had cooled, with time, into a mild, penitential glow.  He breathed harder than ever, in a succession of low growls, and wagged his venerable head at his own delinquencies without intermission.

“How are you now, you young land-shark in petticoats?” inquired the old sailor.  “Has your conscience been quiet enough to let you go to sleep?”

“I have not slept,” said Magdalen, drawing back from him in doubt of what he might do next.  “I have no remembrance of what happened after you locked the door—­I think I must have fainted.  Don’t frighten me again, Mr. Mazey!  I feel miserably weak and ill.  What do you want?”

“I want to say something serious,” replied old Mazey, with impenetrable solemnity.  “It’s been on my mind to come here and make a clean breast of it, for the last hour or more.  Mark my words, young woman.  I’m going to disgrace myself.”

Magdalen drew further and further back, and looked at him in rising alarm.

“I know my duty to his honor the admiral,” proceeded old Mazey, waving his hand drearily in the direction of his master’s door.  “But, try as hard as I may, I can’t find it in my heart, you young jade, to be witness against you.  I liked the make of you (especially about the waist) when you first came into the house, and I can’t help liking the make of you still—­though you have committed burglary, and though you are as crooked as Sin.  I’ve cast the eyes of indulgence on fine-grown girls all my life, and it’s too late in the day to cast the eyes of severity on ’em now.  I’m seventy-seven, or seventy-eight, I don’t rightly know which.  I’m a battered old hulk, with my seams opening, and my pumps choked, and the waters of Death powering in on me as fast as they can.