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 drunk, 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 Captain Swash put his da’ghter’s hand into mine, that the woman was n’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 that day.  Often and often have I bethought me of it; and sartain as you sit there, no great luck has ever been with me, or my craft, since I went off, leaving my wife ashore.  What was made in one v’y’ge, was lost in the next.  Up and down, up and down the whole time, for so many, many long years, that grey hairs set in, and old age was beginning to get close aboard—­and I as poor as ever.  It has been rub and go with me ever since; and I have had as much as I could do to keep the brig in motion, as the only means that was left to make the two ends meet.”

“And did not all this make you think of your poor wife—­she whom you had so wronged?”