bade them carry him aboard, and hold their tongues; and on the
captain asking how he had come in such a pickle, replied with a
burst of passionate swearing, and incontinently fainted. They held
some debate, but they were momently looking for a wind, they were
highly paid to smuggle him to France, and did not care to delay.
Besides which, he was well enough liked by these abominable
wretches: they supposed him under capital sentence, knew not in
what mischief he might have got his wound, and judged it a piece of
good nature to remove him out of the way of danger. So he was
taken aboard, recovered on the passage over, and was set ashore a
convalescent at the Havre de Grace. What is truly notable: he
said not a word to anyone of the duel, and not a trader knows to
this day in what quarrel, or by the hand of what adversary, he
fell. With any other man I should have set this down to natural
decency; with him, to pride. He could not bear to avow, perhaps
even to himself, that he had been vanquished by one whom he had so
much insulted whom he so cruelly despised.



CHAPTER VI. - SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S SECOND ABSENCE.



Of the heavy sickness which declared itself next morning I can
think with equanimity, as of the last unmingled trouble that befell
my master; and even that was perhaps a mercy in disguise; for what
pains of the body could equal the miseries of his mind? Mrs. Henry
and I had the watching by the bed. My old lord called from time to
time to take the news, but would not usually pass the door. Once,