worse at the beginning; and when at last, and near dead myself, I crept
below--O, some they were starved, some smothered, some dead of broken
limbs; and the hold was like a lazar-house in the time of the anger of
the Lord!

ARETHUSA. O!

GAUNT. It was two hundred and five that we threw overboard: two hundred
and five lost souls that I had hurried to their doom. I had many die
with me before; but not like that--not such a massacre as that; and I
stood dumb before the sight. For I saw I was their murderer--body and
soul their murderer and, Arethusa, my Hester knew it. That was her
death-stroke: it felled her. She had long been dying slowly; but from
the hour she heard that story, the garment of the flesh began to waste
and perish, the fountains of her life dried up; she faded before my
face; and in two months from my landing--O Hester, Hester, would God I
had died for thee!

ARETHUSA. Mother! O poor soul! O poor father! O father, it was hard on
you.

GAUNT. The night she died, she lay there, in her bed. She took my hand.
"I am going," she said, "to heaven. For Christ's sake," she said, "come
after me, and bring my little maid. I'll be waiting and wearying till
you come"; and she kissed my hand, the hand that killed her. At that I
broke out, calling on her to stop, for it was more than I could bear.
But no, she said she must still tell me of my sins, and how the thought
of them had bowed down her life. "And O!" she said, "if I couldn't
prevail on you alive, let my death."... Well, then, she died. What have
I done since then? I've laid my course for Hester. Sin, temptation,
pleasure, all this poor shadow of a world, I saw them not; I saw my
Hester waiting, waiting and wearying. I have made my election sure; my
sins I have cast them out. Hester, Hester, I will come to you, poor
waiting one; and I'll bring your little maid: ay, dearest soul, I'll
bring your little maid safe with me!

ARETHUSA. O teach me how! Show me the way! only show me.--O mother,
mother!--If it were paved with fire, show me the way, and I will walk it
barefoot!

GAUNT. They call me a miser. They say that in this sea-chest of mine I
hoard my gold. (_He passes R. to chest, takes out key and unlocks it._)
They think my treasure and my very soul are locked up here. They speak
after the flesh, but they are right. See!

ARETHUSA. Her watch? the wedding ring? O father, forgive me!

GAUNT. Ay, her watch that counted the hours when I was away; they were