die.

The ship was ready to sail for Europe; and Philip Vanderdecken went on
board--hardly caring whither he went. To return to Terneuse was not
his object; he could not bear the idea of revisiting the scene of so
much happiness and so much misery. Amine's form was engraven on his
heart, and he looked forward with impatience to the time when he
should be summoned to join her in the land of spirits.

He had awakened as from a dream, after so many years of aberration of
intellect. He was no longer the sincere Catholic that he had been;
for he never thought of religion without his Amine's cruel fate being
brought to his recollection. Still he clung on to the relic--he
believed in that--and that only. It was his god--his creed--his
everything--the passport for himself and for his father into the next
world--the means whereby he should join his Amine--and for hours would
he remain holding in his hand that object so valued--gazing upon
it--recalling every important event in his life, from the death of his
poor mother, and his first sight of Amine; to the last dreadful scene.
It was to him a journal of his existence, and on it were fixed all his
hopes for the future.

"When! oh when is it to be accomplished!" was the constant subject
of his reveries. "Blessed, indeed, will be the day when I leave this
world of hate, and seek that other in which 'the weary are at rest.'"

The vessel on board of which Philip was embarked as a passenger was
the _Nostra Senora da Monte_, a brig of three hundred tons, bound for
Lisbon. The captain was an old Portuguese, full of superstition, and
fond of arrack--a fondness rather unusual with the people of his
nation. They sailed from Goa, and Philip was standing abaft, and sadly
contemplating the spire of the Cathedral, in which he had last parted
with his wife, when his elbow was touched, and he turned round.

"Fellow-passenger, again!" said a well-known voice--it was that of the
pilot Schriften.

There was no alteration in the man's appearance; he showed no marks of
declining years; his one eye glared as keenly as ever.

Philip started, not only at the sight of the man, but at the
reminiscences which his unexpected appearance brought to his mind. It
was but for a second, and he was again calm and pensive.

"You here again, Schriften?" observed Philip. "I trust your appearance
forebodes the accomplishment of my task."

"Perhaps it does," replied the pilot; "we both are weary."

Philip