“Did your brother condemn you for that blow?” he asked gently.
“No.”
“Then no man can do what he refused to do.”
Black Pawl laughed sneeringly. “All right! Hear what he told me. Eight months after I was gone, our daughter was born to her. And six months after that, she and the child were away to sea with another man. Fleeing in the night secretly!”
He was still, on the word—still for so long that the missionary thought the story was ended. But before he could find words, the Captain spoke again.
“There is more,” he said. “Will you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“We got away quickly on another cruise, my son and I. And another after that, and another. And after the third returning, they told me at home that the man with whom she had fled had come back alone. He said she had left him as she had left me. He was gone before I returned. But I knew that some day I would come upon him.
“Red Pawl was full-grown by then—big for his years. He was cabin-boy, one cruise; and fourth mate on the next; and mate the cruise after. It was his first cruise as mate that we found the man.”
There was a cold intensity in Black Pawl’s tone, and he asked again as if in challenge: “Will you hear?”