The
exhausting oppressive heat and the protracted voyage were sapping his
strength, and he knew it. The fresh sweet sea-breezes on which he had
reckoned had failed him, and he was consciously nearer death than when
he left England. He longed eagerly for life and health, that he might
see his wife and child in happier circumstances before he died. To leave
them thus seemed intolerable to him. What was he to do with his boy? He
could not leave him in the care of a mother not yet delivered from the
bondage of such a fatal sin. Yet to separate him harshly from her would
almost certainly doom her to continue in it. If life might be spared to
him only a few years longer, he would probably see her once more a
fitting guardian for their child. The growing hope for her, the dim
dread for himself--these two held alternate sway over him as he paced to
and fro under the southern skies.
Captain Scott, his friend, urged upon him that there was one remedy open
to him, and only one on board the ship. The long stress and strain upon
his physical as well as his mental health had weakened him until his
strength was slowly ebbing away; his heart beat feebly, and his whole
system had fallen under a nervous depression.
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