GROPING IN THE DARK
Life on board the schooner _Coral_, bound for the South Seas, now
became like one delightful dream.
The sails, fanned by the steady trade-wind, hardly ever required
attention, since the course of the craft never varied more than a few
points for days at a time, and whoever it was at the wheel, he might
as well have lashed it fast and gone to sleep, for all the necessity
there was of keeping awake.
There had been some elemental disturbances which required seamanship
to weather, but nothing like that usually encountered in the Atlantic.
But there came a long spell of weather, faultless in every respect,
and whose only drawback was the dread that each day would be the last
of such delight. The sun rose clear and bright, and at high noon, as
they approached the equator, it was sometimes hot, but the breeze
which continually swept the deck tempered it to the crew and
passenger. Had they been caught in a calm the heat would have been
suffocating; but Providence favored them, and they sped along like a
seagull toward their destination. There seemed to be times when the
green surface of the sea was at perfect rest; but the regular rising
and sinking of the _Coral_ showed that the bosom of the great deep was
heaving as it always does, though the long swells came only at
extended intervals.
The water was of crystalline clearness, and, looking over the gunwale,
one could see far into the depths, where strange-looking fish were
sporting, sometimes coming to the surface and then shooting far down
beyond the reach of human vision. Now and then, too, as little Inez
leaned over the side of the vessel and peered downward, she caught
sight of something like a shadow, gliding hither and thither,
apparently without the slightest effort to keep pace with the
schooner, which was bowling along at a rapid rate. It was one of those
monstrous sharks, that will snap a man in two as quickly as if he were
but an apple, should he fall overboard.
Not a day passed without descrying one or more sails at varying
distances, but our friends did not hail or approach any. Both Captain
Bergen and Mate Storms were in a nervous condition, and were morbidly
apprehensive of being anticipated by some one in dredging for the
invaluable pearl-oysters. They were afraid their errand would be
suspected, or they would be attacked after they should secure their
prize.
One day, under the pretense of wanting medicine, Hyde Brazzier
suddenly appeared at the cabin door. The mate and captain were, as
usual, studying the chart, and while the mate was ransacking the
medicine chest for the drug, that single eye of the sailor secured
five minutes' sharp scrutiny of the all-important map.
Redvignez and Brazzier were not much together, as a matter of course,
for one was in the captain's watch and the other in the mate's, but
during the long, pleasant days and nights when they were voyaging
toward the South Seas, they obtained many opportunities for
confidential talks. All this might have been in the natural order of
things on board the schooner, where the discipline was not strict, but
Abe Storms had become pretty well satisfied that harm was meant, and
mischief was brewing. He saw it in the looks and manner of these two
men, who, while they were watching others, did not suspect they were
watched in turn.
About Pomp he was not so certain. The steward and cook seemed to be on
good terms with the two sailors, and he frequently sat with them as
they formed a little group forward, on the bright moonlight nights,
when they preferred to sit thus and smoke and spin yarns to going
below and catching slumber, when it was their privilege to do so.
"I believe he is in with them," was the conclusion which Storms, the
mate, finally reached, after watching and listening as best he could
for several days. "They're hatching some conspiracy--most likely a
mutiny to take possession of the ship. Captain Bergen doesn't suspect
it--he is so absorbed in the pearl business; and I'll let him alone
for the present, though it may be best to give him a hint or two to
keep him on his guard."
It never can be known what the restraining power of little Inez
Hawthorne was on board that vessel on her extraordinary voyage to the
Paumotu Islands, in the South Seas. She lived over again the same life
that was hers during the few days spent on the _Polynesia_. She ran
hither and thither, climbing into dangerous places at times, but with
such grace and command of her limbs that she never once fell or even
lost her balance. She chatted and laughed with Brazzier and Redvig,
but she preferred the others, and showed it so plainly in her manner,
that, unfortunately, the two could not avoid noticing it.
"See here," said Captain Bergen, one evening while sitting in the
cabin with the child on his knee, "I want you to try and think hard
and answer me all the questions I ask you. Will you?"
"Of course I will, if you don't ask too hard ones."
"Well, I will be easy as I can. You have told me all about the big
steamer that you were on when we found you, and you said that you
lived with your Uncle Con in San Francisco, and that it was he and
your Aunt Jemima that put you on board."
"I didn't say any such thing!" indignantly protested Inez. "I haven't
got any Aunt Jemima--it was my Aunt Letitia."
The captain and mate smiled, for a little piece of strategy had
succeeded. They had never before got the girl to give the name of her
aunt, though she mentioned that of her uncle. But she now spoke it,
her memory refreshed by the slight teasing to which she was
subjected.
"That's very good. I'm glad to learn that your uncle and aunt had two
such pretty names as Con and Letitia Bumblebee."
"Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" demanded Inez, turning upon him with
flashing eyes. "I never heard of such a funny name as that."
"I beg pardon. What, then, is their name?"
The little head was bent and the fair brow wrinkled with thought. She
had tried the same thing before, though it must be believed that she
could not have tried very hard, or she would not have failed to
remember the name of those with whom she lived but a short time
before. But she used her brain to its utmost now, and it did not take
her long to solve the question. In a few seconds she looked up and
laughed.
"Of course I know their name. It was Hermann, though he sometimes
called himself George Smith."
"The other sounds German," remarked Storms, in a lower voice. "Go
ahead and get all you can from her."
"How long did you live with them?"
"Let me see," said Inez, as she turned her lustrous blue eyes toward
the roof of the cabin, as if she expected to read the answer there. "I
guess it was about two--three hundred years."
She was in earnest, and Storms observed:
"She must be a little off on that; but take another tack."
The captain did so.
"Do you remember living with any one excepting your Uncle George and
Aunt Letitia?"
Inez thought hard again, and replied, after a few seconds:
"I don't know. Sometimes he was Uncle George and sometimes Uncle Con.
We lived in the city a good while, where there were, oh, such lots of
houses! but there was a time before that when we come such a long,
long way in the cars. We rode and rode, and I guess we must have come
from the moon, for we was ten years on the road."
"Do you remember what sort of looking place the moon was?"
"It was just like San Francisco--that is, it was full of houses."
The officers looked at each other with a smile, and the mate said:
"It's plain enough what that means. She has come from New York, over
the Union Pacific, and her trip was probably the longest of her
life."
"Do you remember your father and mother?"
"I don't know," said Inez, with a look of perplexity on her young face
which it was not pleasant to see. "Sometimes I remember or dream of
them, before we took such a long ride on the cars. My mother used to
hold me on her lap and kiss me, and so did my father, and then there
was crying, and something dreadful happened in the house, and then I
can't remember anything more until I was on the cars."
"It may be all right," said Captain Bergen to his mate, "for this
could occur without anything being amiss."
"It is possible; but I have a conviction that there is something wrong
about the whole business. I believe, in short, that the person who
placed her on board the steamer _Polynesia_ had no claim upon her at
all."
"That, in fact, the man stole her?"
"That's it, exactly; and still further, I don't believe she has any
father or mother in Japan, and that if we had gone thither we should
have lost all the time and accomplished nothing."
"It may be, Abe, that you are right," said the captain, who held a
great admiration for his mate, "but I must say you can build a fraud
and conspiracy on the smallest foundation of any man I ever knew. But,
Abe, you may be right, I say, and if you are, it's just as well that
we didn't go on a fool's errand to Tokio, after all."
"The truth will soon be known, captain."