"She is dead, then!" cried Zillah; "she is dead! She died here--among strangers--in Naples, and I--I delayed in Marseilles!"
A deep groan burst from her, and all the anguish of self-reproach and keen remorse swept over her soul.
Obed Chute looked at her earnestly and mournfully.
"My child," said he, taking her little hand tenderly in both of his--"my poor child--you need not be afraid that your sister is dead. She is alive--as much as you are."
"Alive!" cried Zillah, rousing herself from her despair. "Alive! God be thanked! Have you found out that? But where is she?"
"Whether God is to be thanked or not I do not know," said Obed; "but it's my solemn belief that she is as much alive as she ever was."
"But where is she?" cried Zillah, eagerly. "Have you found out that?"
"It would take a man with a head as long as a horse to tell that," said Obed, sententiously.
"What do you mean? Have you not found out that? How do you know that she is alive? You only hope so--as I do. You do not know so. Oh, do not, do not keep me in suspense."
"I mean," said Obed, slowly and solemnly, "that this sister of yours has never been in Naples; that there is no such steamer in existence as that which she mentions in her letter which you showed me; that there is no such ship, and no such captain, and no such captain's wife, as those which she writes about; that no such person was ever picked up adrift in that way, and brought here, except your own poor innocent, trustful, loving self--you, my poor dear child, who have been betrayed by miserable assassins. And by the Eternal!" cried Obed, with a deeper solemnity in his voice, raising up at the same time his colossal arm and his clenched fist to heaven--"by the Eternal! I swear I'll trace all this out yet, and pay it out in full to these infernal devils!"