“‘Come below,’ I said, ‘Captain—a—’
“‘Smithson,’ he put in.
“‘Come below, Captain Smithson, and tell your story. James, will you bear us company?’
“I and James sat on one side of the table, our guest, with his thin, worn face and dark eyes that seemed to pierce us with their very earnestness, on the other. He told his story rapidly—ran over it, as it were, as a school-boy does something he has learned by heart.
“‘It is but little more than five weeks since the good yacht Windward cleared away from San Francisco—’
“‘James,’ I said, interrupting him, ‘how long have we been at sea?’
“‘Wellnigh four months, sir.’
“‘How the time has flown! Pray, sir, proceed.’
“‘I have never known a quicker passage than we had. The wind was fair all the way, and our little craft appeared to fly with it. But it fell dead calm about the latitude of 20 degrees south of the line. My only passengers—in fact, it was they who had chartered the Windward to take them to Monte Video—a lady and her daughter, began to be very uneasy now. They had heard so much about the fleetness of the Windward that they never expected a hitch. No wonder they were uneasy. Their business in Monte Video was a matter of life or death. The doctor there had assured them that if they were not out by a certain time, the husband and father would never again be seen by them alive.
“‘But the calm was not of long duration. Worse was to come—a tornado burst upon us with awful fury, and all but sunk us. We were carried far to the west out of our course. Fierce gales succeeded the tempest; and when the wind once more sank to rest we found ourselves surrounded by a group of islands that, although I have sailed the South Pacific for many a long year, I had never seen before.