Not at St. Just? Then he had been blown over to Scilly after all. Oh, well, as soon as he could get back Parson Coverdale would . . . Again Teresa shook her head.
Not at Scilly! Then where was he? Up country?
Teresa rose out of her chair and looked Phineas full in the face, stood over him, hair hanging loose, puffy, obese yet withal majestic, tragic beyond words. Something in her swollen eyes made him quail, but not for his own skin, not for himself.
“A Fowey Newfoundlander put into Newlyn Pools morning,” she said, and her voice had a husky burr. “Ten leagues sou’west of the Bishop they found the Gamecock of Monks Cove—bottom up.”
Phineas gripped the edge of the settle and sagged forward. “Then . . .!”
“Yes,” said Teresa. “Drowned. Go home and tell that to your daughter. An’ tell her she’ve got next to her heart the only li’l’ livin’ spark of my lovely boy that’s left in this world. She’m luckier nor I.”
CHAPTER XVIII
But Ortho was not drowned. Dawn found the Gamecock still afloat, still scudding like a mad thing in the run of the seas. There was no definite dawn, no visible up-rising of the sun; black night slowly changed into leaden day, that was all.
Ortho looked around him. There was nothing to be seen but a toss of waters, breakers rushing foam-lipped before, beside him, roaring in his wake. The boat might have been a hind racing among a pack of wild hounds intent on overwhelming her and dragging her under. There was nothing in sight. He had missed the Scillies altogether, as he had long suspected.
After passing the Runnelstone he had kept his eyes skinned for the coal-fire beacon on St. Agnes (the sole light on the Islands), but not a flicker of it had he seen. He must have passed the wrong side of the Wolf and have missed the mark by miles and miles. As far as he could get his direction by dawn, the wind had gone back and he was running due south now. South—whither? He did not know and cared little.