“Wonder if there’s anything in Ransome’s yarn about that beauty,” said one man, shutting his binoculars. “Hang it! I’m not superstitious, but, all the same, I wish we’d never sighted her.”
Chapter Twenty Six.
An Omen.
There was the usual clatter of knives and forks, and chinking of glasses, and scurrying of stewards in the well-lighted saloon, and during dinner the derelict they had just passed took up a large proportion of the conversation. As to this the captain’s table constituted no exception.
“What sort of ship would she have been, Captain Lawes—English?” The speaker was the lady passenger we heard making inquiries as to sea superstitions. She was a bright, rather taking woman of about thirty, making the homeward voyage with one child, a sweetly-pretty little girl, who was made a great pet of among the passengers—indeed, a great deal more than was good for her.
“Can’t say for certain, but am inclined to think so. She must have been a timber ship or she’d hardly have kept afloat for so long.”
“How long do you think she’s been like that?”
“Can’t say either for certain. She may have been months, and, from the look of her, a good few of them. Or she may have been years.”