For a time there was only mist and blackness, but shortly the rain came down in sheets, the thunder-claps were deafening, and the sea looked like sheets of fire. Anon the wind came, and such a wind. Little sail had been left on her, but the squall appeared to lift the great barque almost out of the water. For a moment she plunged bows first into it, quivering all over from stem to stern like a stricken deer; then, as if fear lent her fleetness, she dashed forward and tore through the wind-chafed ocean, with a speed that the oldest sailor on board had never seen equalled.
All that day the wind blew with hurricane force, and all the next night, then once again the weather cleared. But a gloom that could not be dispelled had settled over the ship, and when four days afterwards, after searching fruitlessly for the lost boat, the San Salvador bore up once more on her course, all the life and soul seemed clean gone out of every man on board.
Perhaps the most unhappy man of all was Señor Sarpinto.
"Oh," he said over and over again to Captain Cawdor, "I'd rather have lost all my fortune than that this terrible affliction should have befallen us."
"My dear sir," said the captain, "we must not repine. We are all in the hands of a merciful Father, who knows what is best for His children here below."
"Oh," cried Sarpinto, "you are good, Captain Cawdor, you are good. But do not try to cheer me up, I must and shall repine. It is my comfort to repine, for, captain, was not the fault all mine, and now I have lost the only being I seem ever to have loved on earth—save one. All my good fortune appears to have deserted me, and my life is closing in darkness and gloom."
What words of consolation could Captain Cawdor find to assuage grief like this? He stretched out his hand and grasped that of the señor.
"I too am in grief," he said quietly.
"Oh, yes, yes!" cried Sarpinto. "I had forgotten. Forgive me, my poor friend. I am selfish. But now for your sake I will try to be brighter, happier."