Bitter moment, truly! Time has scarcely lessened the keenness of the
sensations I endured, as memory traces the feelings and incidents of that
day. From the hour when I sailed from home, Lucy's image was seldom absent
from my imagination, ten minutes at a time; I thought of her, sleeping and
waking; in all my troubles; the interest of the sea-fight I had seen could
not prevent this recurrence of my ideas to their polar star, their
powerful magnet; but I do not remember to have thought of Lucy, even, once
after Marble was thus carried away from my side. Neb, too, with his
patient servitude, his virtues, his faults, his dauntless courage, his
unbounded devotion to myself, had taken a strong hold on my heart, and his
loss had greatly troubled me, since the time it occurred. But I remember
to have thought much of Lucy, even after Neb was swept away, though her
image became temporarily lost to my mind, during the first few hours I was
thus separated from Marble.