When we found ourselves at last with no water spouts anywhere near, and the upper and lower world reasonably disconnected, Sadler and I went below, where we found Mrs. Ulswater nervous, Susannah excited, Ram Nad calm as a browsing cow. We discussed the experience. By night the weather was fairly calm. Not till then did we find that Dolores and Georgiana Tupper were missing.
In the forecastle, it had been supposed that they were aft; in the cabin, that they were forward. They were nowhere. The minutest search was in vain. From one end of the yacht to the other we went—from deck to keel. None could remember having noticed them, except Ram Nad, who stated that he had seen them on deck before the tumult arose. No doubt remained then. They were gone. What could be said? What interpretation could be put upon it? What other than this? that in endeavouring to pass, during the storm, from the forecastle to the cabin, or vice versa, they had been blown or swept overboard.
But why both? How, in particular, Dolores? Georgiana was but a hen; a hen can be swept or blown; her anchorage is weak, her sail area apt to enlarge with the wind; whereas Dolores was a cat, carrying four to five anchors to each foot, and a sail area small under all circumstances. What force then could have torn loose her desperate grapple? unless it were—a pathetic possibility here—that, seeing Georgiana, the companion and support of her bereaved existence, thus blown away, she had rushed devotedly to her rescue; or—a still more affecting thought—that, simply resolved not to outlive Georgiana but to perish with her, she had cast herself after Georgiana upon the weltering deep.
When this last idea occurred to me, I sought Susannah and turned it over to her. The first effect was unfortunate. Tearful, at the time, she burst out weeping. Mrs. Ulswater said I ought to be ashamed. Sadler, with mournful sarcasm, did not see why a man, because he was full of ideas, had to slop over like a tub of soapsuds—surely a mixed metaphor, a confused figure of speech.
Another idea occurred to me. It was that Susannah had the entire sympathies of the Violetta in tow.
CHAPTER XX—THE BALLAD OF GEORGIANA AND DELORES
THE BALLAD
THERE was a cat and named Dolores,