1830.] The Demon Ship. 641 



years after the period we speak of, when he gave his hand to one of 

 whom I trust he has too much manly feeling ever to speak save with the 

 tender respect she merited, but to whom he candidly confessed that 

 he brought but a blighted heart, the better half of whose affections lay 

 buried in the grave of her who had first inspired them/' In vain I sought 

 to perceive what effect this disclosure had on my companion. Her face 

 seemed studiously averted. The calm was profound; every breeze 

 seemed to have died on the deep. It could not, therefore, be the night- 

 air that so violently agitated the white raiment of Margaret. 



I continued my history, brought myself to Malta, and placed myself 

 on board an English vessel. Here, I confess, my courage half-failed 

 me; but I went on. " Francillon," I said, " now began to realize his 

 return to his native land. On the first night of his voyage he threw him- 

 self, in meditative mood, on the deck, and half in thought, half in 

 dreams, recalled former scenes. But there was one form which, re- 

 created by a faithful memory, constantly arose before his imagination. 

 He dreamed, too, a something I know not what of a pilgrimage to 

 the lone grave of her he had loved and lost ; and then a change came 

 upon his slumbering fancy, and he seemed to be ploughing some solitary 

 and dismal sea ; but even there a form appeared to him, whose voice 

 thrilled on his ear, and whose eye, though it had waxed cold to him, 

 made his heart heave with strange and unwonted emotion. He awoke 

 but oh ! the vision vanished not. Still in the moonlight he saw her 

 who had risen on his dreams. Francillon started up. The figure he 

 gazed on hastily retreated. He followed her in time to raise her from 

 the fall her precipitate flight had occasioned, and discovered, with sensa- 

 tions which for a moment well nigh overpowered him, that she whom he 

 beheld was indeed the object of his heart's earliest and best feelings 

 was Margaret Cameron !" I believe my respiration almost failed me as 

 I thus ended. I spoke passionately, and uncovered my head when I 

 uttered the concluding words. Margaret sprang to her feet with asto- 

 nishment and emotion. " Is it possible ! have I then the pleasure to 

 see I am sure I am most fortunate " again and again began Mar- 

 garet. But her efforts at calmness, at ease, and even politeness, all failed 

 her ; and re-seating herself^ she covered her face with her hands, and 

 gave way to an honest flood of tears. I was delighted ; yet I felt that I 

 had placed her in an embarrassing situation. Seating myself, therefore, 

 by her, and taking her hand, rather with the air of an elder brother than 

 of a suitor," Margaret," I said, " (if, as an early friend both of you and 

 your father, you will again allow me thus to call you,) I fear I have 

 been somewhat abrupt with you. Forgive me if I have been too bold in 

 thus forcing on you the history of one for whom I have little reason and less 

 right to suppose you still interested. Bury in oblivion some passages in 

 it, and forgive the biographer if he have expanded a little too freely 

 on feelings which may be unacceptable to your ear. 1 " I stretched out 

 my hand as I spoke, and we warmly shook hands, as two old friends in 

 the first moment of meeting. 



I had been longing to know somewhat of Margaret's own history, 

 wherefore she had visited Malta, &c. ; but she seemed to have no inten- 

 tion of gratifying my curiosity, and I only too feelingly divined that her 

 parents' altered circumstances had sent hr out the humble companion of 

 the Countess of Falcondale. (( I am aware," I said, smiling, " that I 

 have more than one old acquaintance in this vessel ; and, in truth, when 



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