“I don’t know,” said Inez, with a look of perplexity on her young face which it was not pleasant to see. “Sometimes I remember or dream of them, before we took such a long ride on the cars. My mother used to hold me on her lap and kiss me, and so did my father, and then there was crying, and something dreadful happened in the house, and then I can’t remember anything more until I was on the cars.”
“It may be all right,” said Captain Bergen to his mate, “for this could occur without anything being amiss.”
“It is possible; but I have a conviction that there is something wrong about the whole business. I believe, in short, that the person who placed her on board the steamer Polynesia had no claim upon her at all.”
“That, in fact, the man stole her?”
“That’s it, exactly; and still further, I don’t believe she has any father or mother in Japan, and that if we had gone thither we should have lost all the time and accomplished nothing.”
“It may be, Abe, that you are right,” said the captain, who held a great admiration for his mate, “but I must say you can build a fraud and conspiracy on the smallest foundation of any man I ever knew. But, Abe, you may be right, I say, and if you are, it’s just as well that we didn’t go on a fool’s errand to Tokio, after all.”
“The truth will soon be known, captain.”