Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/363

Rh only a bit of a girl who'd never wanted a comfort on this earth until that time, and who starved with me then and for years. My God! my whole body burns when I think of it—that bit of a creature who'd never known the lack of a gratification and who was dragged down to every degradation by my curse."

I looked at him in surprise, and he answered me instinctively.

"Yes, by my curse. Maybe you don't know what it was, for I've held it under a bit since she died, but I was a drunkard then—a maniac when I had the liquor on me, a devil from whom all men fled. Not that there isn't work for any man in that country—work, and well paid—but I had the fever on me, and well, we sank very low. How I lived I can't tell you; but after a couple of years of it I worked a passage to New York, and there my son was born. When he grew up he was the very image of you. That's why I gave you your life when you came on my ship."

The words were spoken in that gentle voice he could command sometimes, and, as he uttered them, he took my hand and gave it a great grip. I understood then that curious look he had given me at our first meeting; his partisanship for me against the men; and that last great risk which had brought the end of it all, If it had not brought death to both of us.