I gazed at him in blank amazement. "Yes," said the captain, "I have seen her, and she has sent me to you. But I see you are all knocked into a heap, and I will make the story as short as I can. This vessel of mine is bound from Liverpool to La Guayra, and on the way down we called at Lisbon. On the morning of the day I was to sail from there, there came into port the Glanford, a big English merchantman, from Buenos Ayres to London. I knew her skipper, Captain Guy Chesters, as handsome a young English sailor as ever stood upon a deck.
"In less than an hour from the time we dropped anchor, Captain Guy was on my vessel. He was on the lookout, he said, for some craft bound for South America or the West Indies, and was delighted to find me there. Then he told me that, ten days before, he had taken two ladies from a half-wrecked French steamer, and that they had prayed and besought him to cruise about and look for the Sparhawk, a helpless ship, with a friend of theirs alone on board.
"'You know,' said Captain Guy to me, 'I couldn't do that, for I'd lost time enough already, and the wind was very light and variable; so all I could do was to vow to the ladies that when we got to Lisbon we'd be bound to find a steamer going south, and that she could easily keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and take off the friend.' 'That was a pretty big contract you marked out for the steamer going south,' I said, 'and as for the Sparhawk, she's an old derelict, and I sighted her on my voyage north, and sent in a report of her position, and there couldn't have been anybody on board of her then.' 'Can't say,' said Captain Guy; 'from what I can make out, this fellow must have boarded her a good while after she was abandoned, and seems to have been lying low after that.' Was that so, sir? Did you lie low?"
I made no answer. My whole soul was engaged in the comprehension of the fact that Bertha had sent for me. "Go on!" I cried.
"All right," said he. "I ought not to keep you waiting. I promised Captain Guy I would keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and take you off if you were on board. I promised the quicker, because my conscience was growling at me for having, perhaps, passed a fellow-being on an abandoned vessel. But I had heard of the Sparhawk before. I had sighted her, and so didn't keep a very sharp lookout for living beings aboard. Then Captain Guy took me on board his ship to see the two ladies, for they wanted to give me instructions themselves. And I tell you what, sir, you don't often see two prettier women on board ship, nor anywhere else, for that matter. Captain Guy told me that before I saw them. He was in great spirits about his luck. He is the luckiest fellow in the merchant service. Now, if I had picked up two people that way, it would have been two old men. But he gets a couple of lovely ladies; that's the way the world goes. The ladies made me pretty nigh swear that I'd never set foot on shore till I found you. I would have been glad enough to stay there all day and make promises to those women; but my time was short, and I had to leave them to Captain Guy. So I did keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and heard of her from two vessels coming north, and finally fell in with you. And a regular lunatic you were when I took you on board; but that's not to be wondered at; and you seem to be all right now."
"Did you not bring me any message from them?" I asked.
"Oh, yes; lots," said the captain. "Let me see if I can remember some of them." And then he knit his brows and tapped his head, and repeated some very commonplace expressions of encouragement and sympathy.
The effect of these upon me was very different from what the captain had expected. I had hoped for a note, a line—anything direct from Bertha. If she had written something which would explain the meaning of those last words from Mary Phillips, whether that explanation were favorable or otherwise, I would have been better satisfied; but now my terrible suspense must continue.
"Well," said the captain, "you don't seem cheered up much by word from your friends. I was too busy looking at them to rightly catch everything they said, but I know they told me they were going to London in the Glanford. This I remembered, because it struck me what a jolly piece of good luck it all was for Captain Guy."
"And for what port are you bound?" I asked. "La Guayra," he said. "It isn't a very good time of the year to be there; but I don't doubt that you can find some vessel or other there that will take you north, so you're all right."