_In Which We Learn the Particulars of the Wreck of the Galland_
Captain Joe Bowditch smiled down broadly at me from the poop as
I leaped to the deck; but when he saw the burden in my arms his
countenance changed queerly.
“What in the name o’ goodness you got there?” he barked.
“A little girl, Captain Bowditch,” I replied.
“A little--well! what d’ye think o’ that?” he gasped, waddling down the
ladder. “Ye didn’t git that aboard the Seamew? Nor out o’ the ocean
when ye went overboard, neither?”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Barney, who had followed me. “She is what we found
in that drifting boat--part of what we found, at least.”
“A gal! Moses ter Moses, and all hands around!” groaned the captain.
“Whatever will we do with a gal aboard the Gullwing?”
“I don’t see how we could have left her there, Captain,” laughed Mr.
Barney.
“Now, don’t ye cackle!” snapped the old man. “Why didn’t you leave her
for Cap’n Si? He’s a man that’s more used to female children than I be.
Why, Cap’n Si’s sister married a man whose brother got spliced to a
widder woman that had twin gal babies. He’s more fitten to take such a
responsibility than what I be.”
He looked as though he thought he had proved his case, too. But I was
too much worried over the condition of the pretty creature in my arms
to pay much attention to his growling.
And when the Hindoo was brought inboard, Captain Joe went off into
another fit. “Holy smoke!” he yelled. “Another useless critter to feed.
Didn’t you leave nothin’ in that boat for the Seamew?”
“We left a dead man,” chuckled one of the men.
“Well--we could have buried him easy,” grunted the old man. “Take that
nigger below and find out what seems to be the matter with him.”
But his bark was a whole lot worse than his bite. He hurried away
to open the spare cabin for the girl, and I followed him into the
afterhouse, still bearing her in my arms.
Mr. Bates, who had the deck, came to look down upon her pretty, white
face as I started below.
“Bless her!” he murmured. “Have a care with her, Clint. Glad to see you
again, boy. Ah! that pretty one ought to bring us luck, sure enough.”
“Come right this way, boy, and lay her in the bed,” ordered Captain
Bowditch. “My! she looks bad--but pretty! Sh! is she asleep?”
And then the trembling lids, with their long golden lashes, opened
slowly. With her complexion and hair, I had expected to look into blue
eyes. But I was astonished to find that the little creature’s orbs were
a beautiful, deep, deep brown, with golden sparks in their depths. My
face was so close to hers at the moment her lids parted that I could
see the reflection of my own countenance in the pupils.
“My soul!” murmured Captain Joe, looking over my shoulder, “she’s jest
the prettiest thing I ever see.”
Her wan face changed slowly. A faint color was breathed over it. She
gazed steadily into my countenance, and it was evident that I did not
frighten her. She put up one hand and touched my cheek. I tell you, the
touch thrilled me!
Then her eyes closed again, she sank deeper into the pillow, and was
again asleep.
“Here, boy!” croaked the master of the Gullwing, trying to speak
softly. “You run and tell the doctor to kill a chicken and make some
broth--strong broth, now. Don’t want no ‘phantom soup’--suthin’ that
tastes like a chicken did more than wade through a gallon of water on
stilts. If he don’t make it good I’ll be in his wool!”
I ran to do his bidding. I knew very well that the little girl would
have the very best of everything there was upon the big schooner.
In the dog-watch I held a regular reception. The men were eager to hear
the story of my adventure overboard, and old Tom Thornton declared I
might live to be “a second Methuserlum” and never experience a closer
call than that. Old Stronson shook his head.
“De poy iss fey,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“He’s sure a lucky youngster,” declared Bob Promise. “No wonder he got
the best of me when we had our set-to.”
Thank and I had much to talk over. I know my chum had suffered in
spirit when it seemed that I was drowned. He never would admit to the
others that he had given up hope of seeing me again. Now he clung close
around me and did not seem to want to let me out of his sight--not
even long enough for me to go down to take a look at Dao Singh.
“Let that Jasper be, Sharp,” Thank drawled. “You can’t kill a nigger
easy--sleep won’t hurt him. If he was pretty near two weeks on watch in
that boat, no wonder he’s all in.”
“He is a faithful creature,” I said. “And he must love his mistress.”
“That Jasper’s taken a fancy to you, too,” Thank said. “You’re ‘it’
with him.”
I did not realize at the time how very right Thank was, and what it
meant to be canyonized by Dao Singh.
The report came forward that the little girl had taken some of the
broth the cook had made, was seemingly satisfied with her surroundings,
and had gone to sleep again. Mr. Barney told me that Cap’n Bowditch was
peeking in at her every hour or so, and that it was plain the old man
was prepared to get down on the deck and let his little visitor walk on
him--if she so desired.
But in the morning watch they called me and I found that the girl
wanted to go up on deck, but had asked to be lifted by the boy who had
taken her from the wrecked boat. She remembered me, then! And I had not
really supposed she had seen me until after I had lain her down in the
berth and she had opened her eyes.
She had had some breakfast. There was a little flush in her face. She
looked much brighter, and when she saw me she smiled delightfully.
“I know your face!” she said, and although her voice was weak, it
was as sweet as a tinkling silver bell. “I was sure I could not be
mistaken.”
“Mistaken?” I asked, puzzled.
“Yes. You were the boy I saw before--oh, long, long before I came here.”
That puzzled me, and I suppose my face must have shown my surprise. She
laughed--a pretty, resonant chime. I fell for that voice of hers!
And then what she said about seeing me so long before got me going, too.
“Say, you never saw me before I got you out of that boat,” I declared.
“Oh, yes, I did,” she returned, confidently. “I haven’t been aboard
this big ship long, have I?”
“Only since yesterday,” I admitted.
“That is what the nice captain told me,” she returned, as though
satisfied.
“Then you’ve seen me just once before. When I brought you below
yesterday.”
“But you took me out of the boat?”
“Yes.”
“And held me all the time we were getting here?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“I knew it,” she breathed, smiling up into my face again. “I knew it
couldn’t be all just a dream.”
The captain had fixed a chair himself, with blankets and the like, in
the shade of the afterhouse. There I laid her down and then, having no
further orders, would have gone forward to my own place. But she clung
to my hand.
“You sit down here on the deck beside me, tell me your name, and all
about you,” she said. “For although I saw you so long ago, I never
learned who you were.”
I looked up at Mr. Gates and the Captain and slyly tapped my forehead.
I believed she was lightheaded. The old man nodded and said, gruffly
enough, for he was deeply moved:
“You stay with her, Clint. Do jest what she wants ye to.”
“Clint?” she repeated, questioningly. “Is that your name?”
“Clinton Webb,” I replied.
“Clinton is pretty. You are English?”
“I should say not!” I exclaimed. “American.”
“Oh, yes! I am an English girl; but I have lived in British India most
all my life.”
“That’s it, Miss,” I said, knowing that the captain and mate were dying
to hear her story. “You tell us all about it. How did you come in that
boat? And what vessel was it that was wrecked?”
“We sailed in the Galland, a big steamship, from Calcutta,” said the
girl softly. “I was with friends. They were taking me home--‘home’
means England to all British India people who are white.”
“Then you were going to relatives?”
“I do not know. I am not sure. My father had some people--_once_. But
they treated him unkindly, I believe. He had not heard from them for
years. My father was Captain Erskin Duane. He died very, very suddenly.
My mother had been a long time dead,” and the tears now began to fill
her eyes and creep down her pale cheeks.
“Friends who were about to go to England took me on the Galland with
them. These were Mr. Suffix, and Mr. and Mrs. Traine, and Cecelia
Traverstone.”
“Were they saved?” asked Mr. Gates, quietly.
“I do not know. I think not. I think the steamer’s boilers blew up and
smashed most of the boats and liferafts, so that few were saved,” said
the girl, simply.
“You poor child!” breathed Captain Bowditch, blowing his nose right
afterward like a fog siren.
“I am Phillis Duane,” she said, after a moment. “I traveled with my
_ayer_ and Dao Singh, who would not leave me when father died. He had
always served the captain. We lived up country from Calcutta. I do not
think that my father was very well acquainted with the people I sailed
with, after all. I was alone, and they were just kind to me.”
“And you don’t know what you were going to do when you reached
England--whom you would meet?” queried Mr. Gates, gravely.
“No. It was all in the hands of my friends,” she said, shaking her
head. “And I am quite sure they never got away from the Galland. I
would not, had it not been for Dao Singh.”
“That nigger, eh?” grunted the captain.
“He is a Hindoo. He is a very intelligent man in his own language
and among his own people. I have heard my father say so. I fear he
sacrificed his caste by attending on the captain--and on me.”
“But he saved you from the wreck?” I urged, keeping her to the story of
the wreck.
“Yes. When the boilers blew up (the steamship had been afire all night)
Dao Singh ran into the cabin and hurried my _ayer_ and me out on the
deck. Some men were lowering a boat. It was damaged some.
“Singh tried to put the _ayer_ and me in it. But I believe she must
have fallen overboard, or been pushed overboard. There was much
confusion. I was scared and cried. When I understood a little better
about matters, we were in the boat, drifting without oars, and the
Galland, all a mass of flames, seemed to be going down, stern-foremost,
under the sea.”