Page:Demon ship, or, The pirate of the Mediterranean.pdf/8

8 Cameron; and, after this self-introduction, may, perhaps, claim the name of my father's former acquaintance.' You may be sure I was in no mood to give it. I rushed to the side of the vessel, and, hanging over it, gasped with an emotion which almost stopped respiration. It is inexpressible what a revulsion this strange diseoverydiscovery [sic] made in my feelings. I felt that there had been treachery. I became keenly sensible that I must have appeared a traitor to Margaret, and hurriedly resolved not to declare my name to her until I had in some way cleared my charaetercharacter [sic].

I was still sufficiently a man of the world to have my feelings in some mastery, and returned to the side of Margaret with an apology for indisposition, which in truth was no subterfuge. I verily believe, as the vessel had given a sudden lurch at the moment she had discovered herself, and my pendant posture over the ship's side might be an attitude of rather dubious construction, she passed on me the forgiveness of a sea-sick man. Margaret added, that she presumed she had the pleasure of addressing her fellow-passenger, Captain Lyon? She had often, she observed, heard her father mention his name, though not aware until this moment of his identity with her brother-voyager. I was not displeased by this illusion, though I thus found myself identified with a man twenty years my senior. I remarked, with an effort at ease, that I had certainly once possessed the advantage of Captain Cameron's acquaintance, but that a lapse of many years had separated me from him and his family. 'There was, however,' I remarked, 'a Captain, since made Colonel, Francillon, in India, who had been informed, or rather, happily for her friends, misinformed, of the death of Miss Cameron.' Margaret smiled incredulously; but with a dignified indifference, which created a strange feeling within me, seemed willing to let the subject pass. Margaret's spirits seemed to have lost their buoyancy, and her cheek the bloom of youth. But there was an elegance, a sort of melancholy dignity in her manner, and a touching expression on her countenance, to which both before had been strangers. Observing her smile, and perceiving that, with another graceful acknowledgment of my assistance, she was about to withdraw, I grew desperate, and ventured, with some abruptness, to demand if she had herself known Colonel Francillon? She answered, with a self-possession which chilled me, that she had eertainlycertainly [sic] in her youth been acquainted with a Lieutenant Francillon, who had since been promoted in India, and probably was thothe [sic] officer of whom I spoke. 'Perhaps,' observed I, 'thorethere [sic] is not a man alive for whom I feel a greater interest than for