I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained
there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here."
"I well remember," said the captain, "that I told you that if you had no
experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky
man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. I'm sorry."
"Thus it is," said Tregarthen. "Of my own innocence I have of course
been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. Of Clissold I
have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty; but they have
never been confirmed until now. For my daughter's sake and for my own I
have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life,
and have long believed that it would die with me."
"Wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present question
is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. Now,
here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow. Here
they stand, agreed on one point, on which I'd back 'em round the world,
and right across it from north to south, and then again from east to
west, and through it, from your deepest Cornish mine to China.
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