tle recovered his health, or, at
least in some degree, his tranquillity. Ere the decided relapse which
came, the two captains had many cordial conversations--their fraternal
unreserve in singular contrast with former withdrawments.

Again and again it was repeated, how hard it had been to enact the part
forced on the Spaniard by Babo.

"Ah, my dear friend," Don Benito once said, "at those very times when
you thought me so morose and ungrateful, nay, when, as you now admit,
you half thought me plotting your murder, at those very times my heart
was frozen; I could not look at you, thinking of what, both on board
this ship and your own, hung, from other hands, over my kind benefactor.
And as God lives, Don Amasa, I know not whether desire for my own safety
alone could have nerved me to that leap into your boat, had it not been
for the thought that, did you, unenlightened, return to your ship, you,
my best friend, with all who might be with you, stolen upon, that night,
in your hammocks, would never in this world have wakened again. Do but
think how you walked this deck, how you sat in this cabin, every inch of
ground mined into honey-combs under you. Had I dropped the least hint,
made the least advance towards an understanding between us, death,
explosive death--yours as mine--would have ended the scene."

"True, true," cried Captain Delano, starting, "you have saved my life,
Don Benito, more than I yours; saved it, too, against my knowledge and
will."

"Nay, my friend," rejoined the Spaniard, courteous even to the point of
religion, "God charmed your life, but you saved mine. To think of some
things you did--those smilings and chattings, rash pointings and
gesturings. For less than these, they slew my mate, Raneds; but you had
the Prince of Heaven's safe-conduct through all ambuscades."

"Yes, all is owing to Providence, I know: but the temper of my mind that
morning was more than commonly pleasant, while the sight of so much
suffering, more apparent than real, added to my good-nature, compassion,
and charity, happily interweaving the three. Had it been otherwise,
doubtless, as you hint, some of my interferences might have ended
unhappily enough. Besides, those feelings I spoke of enabled me to get
the better of momentary distrust, at times when acuteness might have
cost me my life, without saving another's. Only at the end did my
suspicions get the better of me, and you know how wide of the mark they
then proved."