“Rawlings, you know now the story of my early life. Without a being to guide my boyhood, I was flung on the wide ocean of existence. The sword has been my talisman, and I have hewn my own road to fame. My very destitution placed me in fortune’s track. I had no gentle ties to bind me to the world: if I died, none would shed a tear: what, then, was life to me?--A nothing! I staked it with a gambler’s recklessness, and I have earned for myself the name that birth denied me.”
A noise on deck was heard. “Stay here,” he said; “I will return immediately.” After a few minutes, Captain O’Brien re-entered the cabin, his face beaming with delight, and its expression betokening the confidence of anticipated victory.
“The Harpy goes nobly through it!” he exclaimed. “Blow, sweet breeze! blow for another hour steadily--bring me alongside that splendid frigate--and then, Dame Fortune! thy spoiled child shall tax thee no further.”
He paused; took two or three turns across the cabin, and then resumed the strain of former conversation.
“Time presses--and now, Rawlings, for another disclosure. Three years ago I returned to England,--‘The happy deed that gilds my humble name was done--I obtained promotion for the service--and wherever I appeared, flattering tokens of popular approbation were heaped on me with unmeasured liberality. Men cheered me as I passed, and--prouder honour--woman smiled upon the daring sailor. To the highest circles the curate’s son was introduced: my passport, _à coup de sabre_, which finished a French captain, and enabled me to lay hands on the halliards of a frigate’s ensign, before those of fifty stout boarders as myself. I met a woman: she was older than myself a year or two; noble by birth; and for beauty, if you sought England over--and that is beauty’s home--you could not find her peer. She was followed and worshipped: the proudest claimed her smiles, and the noblest coronet was offered for her acceptance. Chance introduced me to her father; and I was a casual visitor at his house, with men distinguished for both high birth and unbounded wealth. Would it be credited that I was preferred by that proud lady to all who sought her hand? I--the ocean child--before a crowd of nobles--the humble sailor loved by the _fiancée_ of a duke! ’Tis over;--she is another’s now: and with the heart that fate forbade being united to mine, the mutual secret rests.