The skipper sent away a boat, but it was useless.
There was a mass of floating wreckage, but no trace of any survivor, and after a while the search was given up. Just one of those unexplained mysteries which in this case could only be accounted for as Divine retribution.
So, at any rate, Mrs. Armstrong said to me when I met her on deck half an hour afterward.
“Dreadful! Terrible!” she cried. “How more than thankful I am that I didn’t see it.”
“You didn’t see it?” I said, staring at her. “But surely——”
And then I heard Jim’s voice behind me.
“Mrs. Armstrong, I have a dreadful confession to make. Mrs. Armstrong, Dick, was good enough to lend me some clothes this morning, so that we could have a rag when crossing the line—and I’ve gone and dropped her parasol overboard.”
I admit it; I wasn’t bright.
“We’re nowhere near the line,” I remarked, but fortunately the good lady paid no attention.
“What does it matter, Mr. Maitland?” she cried. “To think of anything of that sort in face of this awful tragedy! Though I must confess I think it served the villains right.”