CHAPTER XVII
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?”
“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.”