"Do you live here?" asked Florence.
"Yes, my lady lass," returned the Captain.
"Oh, Captain Cuttle!" cried Florence, putting her hands together, and speaking wildly. "Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I am! I ’ll tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in the world to go to. Do not send me away!"
"Send you away, my lady lass!" exclaimed the Captain. "You, my Heart’s Delight! Stay a bit! We ’ll put up this here deadlight, and take a double turn on the key!"
With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all fast, and locked the door itself.
When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, the confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the pain of mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his knowledge of her past history, her present lonely, worn, and unprotected appearance, all so rushed upon the good Captain together, that he fairly overflowed with compassion and gentleness.
"My lady lass," said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with his arm until it shone like burnished copper, "don’t you say a word to Ed’ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth and easy; which won’t be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God’s help, so I won’t, Church catechism, make a note on!"
This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much solemnity; taking off his hat at "yes verily," and putting it on again, when he had quite concluded.
Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how she trusted in him; and she did it. Clinging to this rough creature as the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his honest shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled down to bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true man.
"Steady!" said the Captain. "Steady! You ’re too weak to stand, you see, my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!" To see the Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have been worth a hundred state sights. "And now," said the Captain, "you must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too. And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills’s room, and fall asleep there, like a angel."
Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom it was an honour to a dog to know.
In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
