Captain Strathmore and his officers stood for a full hour more steadily watching the revolving shaft, and at the end of that time they were satisfied. Then the new acquaintances saluted and bade each other good-by, the officers of the Coral passing over the rail, and were rowed back to their own vessel, which had followed in the wake of the steamer, as may be said.
By this time it was midnight, and the captain returned to his station on the bridge, reflecting to himself that some of the most insurmountable difficulties, apparently, are overcome by the simplest means, and that there are some persons in the world who really seem capable of inventing anything.
The hour was so late that all the passengers had retired, and little Inez, as a matter of course, had become invisible long before. She had declared several times that she was going to sit up with the captain, and she tried it, but, like most children under such circumstances, she dropped off into slumber by the time it was fairly dark, and was carried below to the cabin.
The child was like so much sunshine flitting hither and thither upon the steamer, and whose presence would be sorely missed when the hour came for her to go. But Captain Strathmore was a disciplinarian, who could never forget his duty, and he remained at his post until the time came for him to go below to gain the few hours’ sleep which cannot be safely dispensed with by any one, no matter how rugged his frame.
Tumbling into his berth, he stretched out with a sigh of comfort, and went to sleep.
“Inez will be in here bright and early to wake me,” was his conclusion, as he closed his eyes in slumber.
But he was disappointed, for when he was called from his couch, it was not by the little one whom he expected to see. At the breakfast-table she did not appear, and then Captain Strathmore, fearing that she was ill, made inquiries. He heard nothing, and filled with a growing alarm, he instituted a thorough search of the vessel from stem to stern and high and low. Not a spot or corner was omitted where a cat could have been concealed, but she was not found.
And then the startling truth was established that little Inez Hawthorne was not on board the steamer.
“Oh!” groaned poor Captain Strathmore, “she became my own child! Now I have lost her a second time!”
CHAPTER V
THE NEW PASSENGER
Captain Strathmore rewarded Abe Storms liberally for the service he had rendered them, and the mate and captain of the schooner, as we have said, were rowed back to the boat by Hyde Brazzier.
Reaching the deck of the Coral, they watched the progress of the great steamer until she vanished from sight in the moonlight, and then the two friends went into the cabin to “study the chart,” as they expressed it.
It may be said that this had been the principal business of the two since leaving the States, though the statement is not strictly correct. The hum of conversation went on for hours; the night gradually wore away, but still the two men sat talking in low tones, and looking at the roll of paper spread out between them, and which was covered with numerous curious drawings. The theme must have been an absorbing one, since it banished all thought of the passage of time from their minds.
“I tell you,” said the captain, as he leaned back in his chair, “there isn’t the remotest doubt that a colossal fortune is awaiting us, and unless some extraordinary accident intervenes, we shall gather it up.”
“So it would seem,” replied the mate, with a weary look, “and yet I sometimes feel certain that it will never be ours–Good gracious!”
The two men almost leaped out of their chairs, and their hair fairly rose on end. They were absolutely certain that no one else was in the cabin besides themselves. Redvignez was at the wheel, and Brazzier awaited his call in turn at the end of the watch. But just then both heard a rustling, and saw a movement in the berth of Captain Bergen, which showed something was there. It couldn’t be a dog or cat, for there was nothing of the kind on board. Besides which, just then, the two men caught sight of the little white hand which clearly belonged to some one of their own species. Then the covering was thrown back; a mass of tangled golden hair was observed, and instantly after, the fair face of a young child peered wonderingly out, as if seeking to learn where she was.
Of course the little one was Inez Hawthorne, though neither of the two men had ever seen or heard of her before, and it is, therefore, idle to attempt to picture their overwhelming astonishment when they became aware so suddenly of her presence in the cabin.
Neither of the two men was superstitious; but there was good excuse for their being wonder-struck. If an individual in the middle of a desert should suddenly become aware of the appearance of a strange person at his elbow, a situation apparently in which he could only be placed by supernatural means, it would be a very mild word to say he would be surprised.
Flinging the coverlet from her shoulders and throwing back her mass of rich golden hair, Inez assumed the sitting position, with her dimpled legs swinging over the side, and her little hands resting on the rail, as if to steady herself during the long swells of the sea, while she looked at the two men as if trying to recollect where she was and who they were.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat anything that was ever heard or read of before!” exclaimed the captain, turning about and staring at her. “Where in the name of the seven wonders did you come from?”
Abe Storms, the mate, did not speak, but seemed to be waiting to see whether the child had a voice, and thus settle the question in his mind as to whether it was mortal or not.
The problem was quickly solved, for Inez was never backward in asserting her individuality.
“How did I come here? That’s a great question to ask! I got tired and lay down to sleep, and have just woke up. I think this is a real nice boat. Are you the captain? My name is Inez Hawthorne–what is yours?”
These questions, uttered with childish rapidity and ingenuousness, threw some light upon the apparent mystery.
“She belongs to the steamer,” said Abe Storms, with his eyes fixed wonderingly upon her. “She has managed to get in our boat in some way, and we have carried her off. Did you ever see anything so pretty?”
As the reader has learned, there was good cause for this admiring question. Both of the men were bachelors, but they possessed natural refinement, and they could reverence the innocence and loveliness of childhood. With the discovery that she was an actual human being, the awe-struck wonder of the two men vanished, though their curiosity was great to learn how it was she was carried away from the steamer.
“Won’t you come here and talk with me?” asked Storms, reaching out his arms invitingly, but a little doubtful whether she would respond, though the stoop-shouldered inventor was always popular with children. The answer of Inez was a sudden spring, which landed her plump into the lap of the mate, while she flung her arms around his neck with a merry laugh, and then wheeled about on his knee, so that she could look in the face of either of the men, who, not unnaturally, felt a strange and strong attraction toward the beautiful child.
Then the two began a series of questions that were answered in the characteristic fashion of childhood, but from which the friends succeeded in extracting something like a clear explanation of her presence on board the Coral– so many miles from the steamer on which she had set sail at San Francisco.
They learned that Inez–who was such a pet on the Polynesia that she was allowed to do as she chose–was invited by one of the crew to visit the Coral, while she lay so close to the disabled steamer. The one who gave this invitation was Hyde Brazzier, and he was struck with the wonderful loveliness of the child, when she questioned him about the schooner.
There is no nature, however steeped in crime, in which there is not a divine spark which may be fanned into a flame–which, perchance, may illumine the whole soul;