own will; only do not ask me to keep a dead man on board, I should have
my men mutiny in a twinkling."

Mordaunt made him no answer, but hastened towards the gangway, where the
men were now ascending. They carefully unloosed the bonds that attached
the body to the plank, and laid him on a pile of cushions where the
light of the setting sun shone full on his face and form. One glance
sufficed for Mordaunt to perceive he was an English officer; another
caused him to start some paces back in astonishment. As the youth thus
lay, the deadly paleness of his countenance, the extreme fairness of his
throat and part of his neck, which, as the sailors hastily untied his
neckcloth and opened his jacket, were fully exposed to view, the
beautifully formed brow strewed by thick masses of golden curls gave him
so much the appearance of a delicate female, that the sailors looked
humorously at each other, as if wondering what right he had to a
sailor's jacket; but Mordaunt's eyes never moved from him. Thoughts came
crowding over him, so full of youth, of home and joy, that tears gushed
to his eyes, tears which had not glistened there for many a long year;
and yet he knew not wherefore, he knew not, he could not, had he been
asked, have defined the cause of that strong emotion; but the more he
looked upon that beautiful face, the faster and thicker came those
visions on his soul. Memories came rushing back, days of his fresh and
happy boyhood, affections, long slumbering, recalled in all their
purity, and his bosom yearned towards home, as if no time had elapsed
since last he had beheld it, as if he should find all those he loved
even as he had left them. And what had brought them back? who was the
youth on whom he gazed, and towards whom he felt affection strangely and
suddenly aroused, affection so powerful, he could not shake it off?
Nothing in all probability to him; and vainly he sought to account for
the emotions those bright features awakened within him. Rousing himself,
as symptoms of life began to appear in the exhausted form before him, he
desired that the youth might be carried to his own cabin. He was his
countryman, he said; an officer of equal rank it appeared, from his
epaulette, and he should not feel comfortable were he under the care of
any other. On bearing him from the deck to the cabin, a small volume
fell from his loosened vest, which Mordaunt raised from the ground with
some curiosity, to know what could be so preci