Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 20, 1896 - Travels and excursion, Volume III

THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE
pity. With a few soothing words he sought to
conclude the interview, and proposed that they
should change their clothes.
'Not right yet,' said Davis. 'There's another
thing I want to tell you first. You know what you
said about my children ? I want to tell you why it
hit me so hard ; I kind of think you '11 feel bad
about it too. It's about my little Adar. You
hadn't ought to have quite said that — but of course
I know you didn't know. She — she 's dead, you see.'
' Why, Davis ! ' cried Herrick. ' You 've told me
a dozen times she was alive ! Clear your head,
man ! This must be the drink.'
'No, sir, said Davis. 'She's dead. Died of a
bowel-complaint. That was when I was away in
the brig Oregon. She lies in Portland, Maine.
"Adar, only daughter of Captain John Davis and
Mariar his wife, aged five." I had a doll for her on
board. I never took the paper off'n that doll,
Herrick ; it went down the way it was with the Sea
Ranger, that day I was damned.'
The captain's eyes were fixed on the horizon ; he
talked with an extraordinary softness but a complete
composure ; and Herrick looked upon him with
something that was almost terror.
' Don't think I 'm crazy neither,' resumed Davis.
' I 've all the cold sense that I know what to do
with. But I guess a man that's unhappy 's like a
child ; and this is a kind of a child's game of mine.
I never could act up to the plain-cut truth, you
see ; so I pretend. And I warn you square : as
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