The missionary considered, eyes afar with his thoughts. “Was there any way,” he asked, “by which you might have known them, if you had ever found the two? Not your wife only, but—your daughter.”
“Aye,” said Black Pawl. “I would know.” His voice was dead in his throat.
“But you never saw the child.”
“No.”
“How could you know?”
The Captain flung about, and asked harshly: “Should I not know my own?”
There was a gentle persistence in the missionary. He ignored the rebuff. “Cap’n Pawl,” he said, “there are strange chances in this world. It is impossible ever to be sure.”
“It is not impossible,” said the Captain. “For I am sure.”
“That dying man may have lied.”
Black Pawl threw back his head. “Father,” he said, “I thought of that. I called him a liar. And he showed me a drawer hidden in the cabin of their filthy schooner; and from the drawer he picked out for me a wedding-ring. I knew it. So was I sure.”