“Many years.  Tier, with whose name I made free, on account of his size, and some resemblance to me in form, died under my care; and his protection fell into my hands, which first put the notion into my head of hailing as his representative.  Yes, I knew Tier in the brig, and we were left ashore at the same time; I, intentionally, I make no question; he, because Stephen Spike was in a hurry, and did not choose to wait for a man.  The poor fellow caught the yellow fever the very next day, and did not live eight-and-forty hours.  So the world goes; them that wish to live, die; and them that wants to die, live!”

“You have had a hard time for one of your sex, poor Jack—­quite twenty years a sailor, did you not tell me?”

“Every day of it, Miss Rose—­and bitter years have they been; for the whole of that time have I been in chase of my husband, keeping my own secret, and slaving like a horse for a livelihood.”

“You could not have been old when he left—­that is—­when you parted.”

“Call it by its true name, and say at once, when he desarted me.  I was under thirty by two or three years, and was still like my own sex to look at.  All that is changed since; but I was comely then.”

“Why did Captain Spike abandon you, Jack; you have never told me that.”

“Because he fancied another.  And ever since that time he has been fancying others, instead of remembering me.  Had he got you, Miss Rose, I think he would have been content for the rest of his days.”

“Be certain, Jack, I should never have consented to marry Captain Spike.”

“You’re well out of his hands,” answered Jack, sighing heavily, which was the most feminine thing she had done during the whole conversation, “well out of his hands—­and God be praised it is so.  He should have died, before I would let him carry you off the island—­husband or no husband.”

“It might have exceeded your power to prevent it under other circumstances, Jack.”

Rose now continued looking out of the window in silence.  Her thoughts reverted to her aunt and Biddy, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered the love of one, and the fidelity of the other.  Their horrible fate had given her a shock that, at first, menaced her with a severe fit of illness; but her strong, good sense, and excellent constitution, both sustained by her piety and Harry’s manly tenderness, had brought her through the danger, and left her, as the reader now sees her, struggling with her own griefs, in order to be of use to the still more unhappy woman who had so singularly become her friend and companion.