"It must be the very ship I saw!" I thought to myself.
"Is the young lady slight in figure, and has she long golden-coloured
hair hanging loose about her head, sir?" I eagerly asked, almost
breathless in my excitement. "And, tell me too, did she have a large
black Newfoundland or retriever dog by her side that same evening, sir?"
Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine
than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.
"My brave young sir," said he, using this somewhat grandiloquent form of
addressing me, I suppose, in remembrance of the slight service I had
done him by swimming with the line to the drifting boat when we picked
up him and his companion. "My little Elsie is tall and slight for her
age, and her hair is assuredly of a golden hue, ah, yes! like liquid
sunshine; though, how you, my good young gentleman, who, to my
knowledge, can _never_ have seen her face to face in this life, can know
the colour of her hair or what she is like, I must confess that passes
my comprehension!"
"But the dog, sir?"
"That is stranger still," remarked Colonel Vereker. "I had forgotten to
mention that I brought with me on board the _Saint Pierre_ from my old
home at Caracas a splendid Russian wolf-hound, as faithful a creature as
my poor negro servant Cato. His name is Ivan, and he is now, I
sincerely hope and trust, guarding my little darling girl, as I would
have done if I had remained with her, for not a living soul would dare
to touch her with him there. Ivan would tear them limb from limb first.
He is a large greyish-black dog, with a rough shaggy coat, and in reply
to your enquiry, I must tell you he _was_ on the poop of the ship, by
the side of my child, at the very time that she declared she saw that
steamer, which I, myself, could not see anywhere!"
For the moment I was unable to speak. I was so overcome at this
unexpected confirmation of the sight I had seen on that eventful Friday
night, though I had afterwards been inclined to disbelieve the evidence
of my own senses, as everybody else had done, even the skipper at last
joining in with the opinion of Mr Fosset and all the rest, save the
boatswain, old Masters. Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had
dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not
seen it at all!
But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper,
and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the most
bewildering manner possible; the old chief, Mr Stokes, and Garry O'Neil
staring at the pair of us with equal amazement.
"By George, the girl and the dog, the girl and the dog. Why, it's the
very same ship, as you say, Haldane; it must be so, and, by George, my
boy, you were right after all! By George, you were!" at length
exclaimed the skipper in a voice, the genuineness of whose astonishment
could not be doubted. "Colonel Vereker, I would not have credited this
had any one told it me and sworn to the truth of it on oath, but the
proof is so strong that I cannot possibly disbelieve it, sir, though it
is to my mind a downright impossibility according to every argument of
common sense. It is certainly the most wonderful thing that has ever
happened to me, and the most wonderful thing that I have ever heard of
since I have been at sea!"
"Heavens!" cried the other. "But why? You surprise me, sir."
"Aye, colonel," rejoined the skipper. "But I am going to surprise you
more. Now don't laugh at me, and don't think me an idiot and gone off
my head, sir, when I tell you that this lad, Dick Haldane, here, whether
by reason of some mirage or other I cannot tell, for it's beyond my
understanding altogether, distinctly saw your ship with her signal of
distress, and says he saw your little daughter with the dog by her side,
aboard her, last Friday night at sunset. More than that, sir, he
described to me at the time, exactly as you have done now, colonel,
everything he saw, even to the very hue of the young girl's hair and the
colour and texture of the dog's coat! It is altogether marvellous and,
indeed, incredible!"
"Well, but--" said Colonel Vereker slowly, and pausing between every
word as if trying to comprehend it all. "Why, how is that, sir?"
"Your ship, colonel, must have been more than five hundred miles away
from ours at the time--that is all!"