Strangely enough, although bunked in the cabin or state-room adjoining the captain’s, both Miss Leona and little Teenie slept soundly all the night, and heard nothing.
There was a feeling of relief in every heart apparently, now that the murdering Thug was no more. The mate Archie Webber had always suspected and feared the man, and never could forgive himself for having taken him on board.
Antonio, too, seemed happier than ever; but the strangest thing remains to be told. Although he did not appear at breakfast, having had a cup of tea brought him by the fat boy, Johnnie Smart, the captain was well to the fore at the one o’clock dinner. But now, instead of wearing that weird uncanny eye in his head that used to jerk about and cut such strange cantrips, he wore a glass eye of the usual dimensions, one you could not have known from the other, nor pronounced glass at all. It was of exactly the same colour as its fellow, and followed its every movement.
Daft little Teenie was the first to note the marvellous change for the better. To think was to act with Teenie.
She sprung on his knee, and threw her arms around his neck.
“Oh, Captain ’Tonio,” she cried, “your eye has growed small, and good, and pretty, just like the other. Did God make it better?”
“Yes, dearie.”
“Well, you is quite bootiful now!”
“You are,” said Miss Leona.
“Yes, you are quite bootiful, Captain ’Tonio.”