her hands for joy, and turning round
to embrace her brother again. He followed her
closely into the room, and then stood staring
blankly around, and shading his eyes with
one hand, as though the light were too strong
for him; but with never a smile of greeting
on his face. Could this pale, hollow-cheeked
figure, dusty and unshaven, with close-
cropped hair, be our Neville, our gay, young
sailor? Alas! there could be no doubt
about it. "Neville, my boy, welcome home,"
said my father, starting up and grasping his
hand. "But you look pale! You are ill!
Is it not so? Helen, some refreshment,
immediately!" No, he was not ill, he replied,
but in such a dry, husky voice that it made me
shiver to hear. My father gazed earnestly
into his eyes, put away a tear that dimmed
his own, and, pulling him forward, pressed
him down, with gentle violence, into the
armchair in the corner.

"Why did you not write, my boy?  You
look pale, and thin, and far from well.  Now,
tell me truly, are you really well?"

"Quite well, father, thank you. But
where's my mother ?  I want to see my
mother !"

"Here I am, Neville! Here I am, dear!"
exclaimed my mother, who had entered at
the moment without being perceived.

He sprang to her heart in a moment, as he
had done when a child; and mother and son
stood locked in a loving embrace. Then my
mother, taking him gently by the shoulders,
and holding him at arm's length, scanned his
pale face with anxious eyes. "O my darling!
what is it?" she asked, in such tender tones
as an angel might have used. Her motherly
eye saw that his ailing was not mere bodily
illness. She sat down without leaving hold
of his hand, and he sank down at her knees,
and laid his weary head in her lap. Softly
stroking his hair with one hand, and bending
over him, she spoke again: "Tell me, what
it is that ails you ?" A sob broke from his
heart. "O mother!" he cried, with a low,
despairing wail, "O mother, they flogged me!"

My father directed a look towards Helen
and me. We rose and left the room. My
father followed us the next minute, closing
the door gently behind him, and left mother
and son to the sacred solitude of their grief.

I retired to my own room up-stairs, and
sat there, sadly enough, for some time. About
ten o'clock there came a tap to my door, and
Neville entered. "I want to talk to you a
bit, Caleb," he said; "but put that light out,
please; it dazzles my eyes; and we can talk
as well without it." So I blew out the candle,
and drew up the blind, and let the mild
starlight stream into the room. I noticed,
before putting out the light, that he did not
look so despairing as on his arrival, and that
his eyes shone with a calmer lustre.

"Caleb," he began, " you know why I
have returned home, a disgraced and ruined
man; but you don't know what led me up
to the point which made such a thing
possible; that is what I want now to tell you.
I sailed the last time under a fresh captain.
He was a brute, and treated his crew as if
they were the same. I was first mate; and,
as a matter of course, we did not long agree.
You know that my temper is a somewhat
passionate one; that it always has been so;
and that I never would calmly accept the
slightest injustice or insult. Well; our
voyage out was nothing but a series of quarrels
and hollow truces. When we had got
about half-way on the voyage home, we had
a more violent quarrel than ever. He gave
me the lie, and I knocked him down. When
he rose he ordered the crew to put me in
irons. I lay all night handcuffed and in
chains; early the following morning they
forced me on deck, stripped me to the
waist, lashed me to the mast, and flogged me
—flogged me, Caleb, till the blood fell from
my back in clotted masses on the deck—
flogged me till I fell down insensible, and had
to be carried like a log of wood to my
hammock. I had but few intervals of consciousness
after that for several weeks—intervals
full of horrible agony; for I lapsed into a
violent fever, and was raging mad for I
know not how long. It is enough to state
that when I came back to consciousness and
comparative ease, I found myself in the
hospital at Liverpool, where I lay as weak and
lifeless as a child for several weeks longer.
And now, you see me here."

"Dear Neville! what you must have
suffered!"

"I lingered all day, Caleb, in the fields
round about. For the first time in my life, I
was ashamed to venture here. I durst not
come till dark. O, brother ! those burning
stripes have eaten into my soul! To
think that I stand here unavenged, with
those marks on my back! But the day will
come! Caleb, it is dark, and you cannot see
my face. Lend me your hand—here—so—
under my waistcoat. Do you feel them?

He guided my fingers with his hand, and I
felt the great wales on his back, scored across
from side to side, thick as the lines on a
music sheet. I recoiled, sick at heart, and
almost fainting.

"Good night, Caleb," he said, with tremulous
voice. "Would that the last Good
Night were said, for I am weary of my
life!"

"Good night, dear Neville," I replied,
squeezing his hand. My heart was full, and
I could not say another word.

When he came down next morning, the
daylight revealed to us still more plain the
great change that had taken place in his
appearance. Worn and ghastly, haggard and
despairing, his looks told us, clearer than any
words, through what depths of suffering he
must have struggled. He sat silently among
us, heedless of all around, with the dreamy