He wondered above all what ailed
him, what he had lost, what disfavour had been done
him, which he knew he should resent, yet had forgotten.
And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume: his
memory teemed with speech and pictures that he should
never again forget; and he sprang to his feet, stood a
moment hand to brow, and began to walk violently to and
fro by the companion. As he walked he wrung his hands.
"God--God--God," he kept saying, with no thought of
prayer, uttering a mere voice of agony.
The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps
minutes, perhaps only seconds, ere he awoke to find
himself observed, and saw the captain sitting up and
watching him over the break of the poop, a strange
blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of
corrugations on his brow. Cain saw himself in a
mirror. For a flash they looked upon each other, and
then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the
eye of his accomplice, and stood leaning on the
taffrail.
An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the
sun rose and drank up the clouds: an hour of silence in
the ship, an hour of agony beyond narration for the
sufferers.
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