CHAPTER VI.

THE BEGINNING OF RETRIBUTION.


The seaman and his young companion were seated together in a little room
overlooking the sea, on the evening succeeding the events we have
related. It was one of those calm, lovely evenings when summer, seeming
loth to give over her reign to the approaching fall, exerts herself to
display her utmost beauty, and withholds her scorching heat. The
declining sun gave a rose colored tint to the landscape, and the vessels
passing to or from the modern Babylon added animation to the scene. The
mariner was gazing at the distant horizon, lost in thought. That
memories of other days were recalled to his mind, was evident from the
working of his features; that it required a strong effort to restrain
his emotion, was perceivable from the compression of his lips. There was
a massive grandeur in his aspect as he sat, well befitting the scene.
His young companion had his thoughts also, and they were not the usual
ones of his age. The meeting with the seaman and subsequent events had
roused him from his usual listless, wayward fancies, and he was going
back in memory to past scenes--shadowy and indistinct--but all in some
way mixed with the locket he wore suspended, unseen, around his neck.
That the time had now arrived when he was to receive an explanation of
the past, he felt sure; for his aunt had often told him that when Walter
arrived he should know all: and from the seaman's manner he conjectured
that the long wished for hour was come.

'Edward,' said the mariner, 'I wish you to tell me all that you