Black Bartlemys Treasure

"By the living God," says I in a whisper, "here's an end to all the mystery at last!" And so remained a great while sitting motionless on my bed, being mightily cast down and utterly confounded. Rousing myself at last I drew my knife from the bulkhead and put out the light; then very cautiously set wide the door, and thus lapped in the pitchy dark (and mighty thankful for the good chain-shirt beneath my jerkin) stood holding my breath to listen. But hearing no more than the usual stir and bustle of the ship, I stole forward silent in my stockinged feet, and groping before me with my left hand, the knife clenched in my right, began to steal towards the ladder. And now, despite shirt of mail, I felt a cold chill that crept betwixt my twitching shoulder-blades as I went, for that which I feared was more hateful than any knife.

Howbeit, reaching the ladder, I got me to the orlop (and mighty thankful) and so to the upper deck, to find a wondrous fair night breathing a sweet and balmy air and with a round moon uprising against a great plenitude of stars. The moon was low as yet and, taking advantage of the shadows, I got me into the gloom of the mainmast where the boats were stowed; and here (being well screened from chance view) I sat me down to drink in the glory of sea and sky, and to wait for chance of speech with Adam. And huge joy was it to behold these vast waters as they heaved to a slumberous swell and all radiant with the moon's loveliness; or, gazing aloft, through the maze of ropes and rigging, marvelled at the glory of the heaven set with its myriad starry fires. And, contrasting all this with the place of black horror whence I had come, I fell to a very ecstasy. And now, even as I sat thus lost in pleasing wonderment, from the quarter-deck hard by came the sweet, throbbing melody of a lute touched by skilled fingers and therewith a voice richly soft and plaintive, yet thrilling with that strange, vital ring had first arrested me and which I should have known the world over. So she sang an air that I knew not, yet methought it wondrous sweet; anon she breaks off, all at once, and falls to the song I had heard her sing before now, viz.: "A poor soul sat sighing by a green willow tree."

Now as I hearkened, my gaze bent aloft, the starry heavens grew all sudden blurred and misty on my sight, and I knew again that deep yearning for a life far different from that I (in my blind selfishness) had marked out for myself. "Here truly" (thinks I) "is one of Godby's 'times of stars,' the which are good times being times of promise for all that are blessed with eyes to see--saving only myself who (though possessing eyes) am yet not as other men, being indeed one set apart and dedicated to a just act of vengeance. But for this, I too might have been happy perchance and with a hope of greater happiness to be."