Heavens! Was it a dream?
I recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed
uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him.
Staggering to my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck,
where Captain Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the
Governor's wife and daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a
beautiful girl, blushed deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his
feet, and, embracing them, cried:--
"My father!"
"Chuck him overboard!" roared Captain Boltrope.
"Stay," pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor's
daughter.
"Shave his head! he's a wretched lunatic!" continued Captain
Boltrope, while his voice trembled with excitement.
"No, let me nurse and take care of him," said the lovely girl,
blushing as she spoke. "Mamma, can't we take him home?"
The daughter's pleading was not without effect. In the mean time I
had fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor
Maitland's mansion.
CHAPTER VII.
The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with
Clara Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The
generous girl asserted that she had detected the superiority of my
manner at once.
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