“She never came into the Breakwater at all,” was the answer. “She must have concluded to lie-to that night, for the wind was dead against her. She was the Cygnet, bound to Norfolk, Virginia, and we heard yesterday that she was spoken the next day by a coasting vessel coming North. The gale had pretty well gone down by that time, and she’d rigged up a jury-mast, and was making her way to her port with a fair wind.”
“Mr. Godfrey,” said Helen, who had been listening attentively, “don’t you suppose that ship might have picked up the people on the tug-boat if they were wrecked? Perhaps Chap and the others are on board of her now.”
“I am afraid there is not much hope in that direction,” said the agent of the company, “for the tug and the disabled schooner do not appear to have had anything to do with each other. Our belief is that the tug-boat was driven out to sea by the storm, on account of some of her machinery getting out of order, and that the persons on board were probably picked up by some passing vessel, from which we may hear at any day.”
“But I think,” persisted Helen, “that we ought not to wait for that. I believe that we ought to go to Norfolk and meet that one-masted schooner. If Chap and the other boys are on board, I’d like to be there when they come in.”
Mr. Berkeley had been quietly thinking about the matter, and although he was very much afraid that there was little reason for supposing that his dear Phil and the other boys were on board the Cygnet, still he felt that nothing should be left undone, and that even this little ray of hope should not be abandoned, and he therefore determined to go to Norfolk, and as Helen plead so earnestly to go with him, he agreed to take her.
She asserted that her valise contained everything she needed, and he assumed the responsibility of taking her upon this trip, feeling sure that nothing would satisfy Mrs. Webster so much as to know that something was still being done. He therefore telegraphed to Boontown, and he and Helen set off for Norfolk as soon as possible.
When they reached Norfolk, the Cygnet had not yet come in. Her passage down the coast had probably been very slow, and she might have been also delayed by additional accidents to her sailing-gear, which, from all accounts, must have been in a very bad condition.
Mr. Godfrey and the young girl walked about the piers and wharves all the afternoon, and as night approached, and no Cygnet had come in, Helen went back to the hotel with a fear that the boys had suffered a second shipwreck.
But early in the morning, word was brought to Mr. Berkeley that the disabled Cygnet lay in the Roads, and it was not long before he and Helen were being rapidly rowed out to the schooner.
But when they went on board, they saw no Chap, no Phil, no Phœnix. The boys had never been on the vessel.