My heart yearned to him
with a tender and womanly love, and the only shade on the brightness
of my joy was the slight doubt whether he would feel thus toward me.
The order had already been passed on the Ellen to lower away a boat,
and my voice sounded husky and unnatural as I shouted back an
invitation to her master to board me in person. I recognized John with
the aid of my glass as he returned a hearty 'Ay, ay!' and dropped
lightly from the futtock-shrouds into the boat. In ten minutes he lay
alongside of my vessel, and in two more stood upon the deck. I
remember well how my heart beat and my tongue refused its office as he
stepped forward to greet his stranger host; how he stopped suddenly as
if frozen to the deck when he looked full in my face; how his whole
frame trembled and his cheeks grew ashy pale as he almost whispered,
'Joseph?'
"'John!'
"And then we were clasped in each other's arms and sobbed like
children, while each hid his face on his brother's shoulder.
"Kelson told me afterward how the rough seamen gazed at us for a while
in astonishment, and then, with a delicacy of feeling which even such
unrefined natures can sometimes exhibit, moved quietly off and left
us unobserved; but I forgot for a while that there was any one else on
the ship besides my new-found brother and myself.
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