"Dead," she said in a voice scarce above a whisper; "only us two are left—I and little Teresa."
Packenham held out his hands to the child. With wondering, timid eyes, she came, and for a moment or two looked doubtingly upwards into the brown, handsome face of the skipper, and then nestled beside him.
For a minute or so the ticking of the cabin clock broke the silence, ere I ventured to ask the one question uppermost in my mind.
"Nerida, how and where did Taplin die?"
"My husband was murdered at sea," she said and then she covered her face with her hands.
"Don't ask her any more now," said Packenham pityingly; "let her tell us to-morrow."
She raised her face. "Yes, I will tell you to-morrow. You will take me away with you, will you not, gentlemen—for my child's sake?"
"Of course," said the captain promptly. And he stretched out his honest hand to her.
"She's a wonderfully pretty woman," said Packenham, as we walked the poop later on, and he glanced down through the open skylight to where she and the child slept peacefully on the cushioned transoms. "How prettily she speaks English, too. Do you think she was fond of her husband, or was it merely excitement that made her cry?—native women are as prone to be as hysterical as our own when under any violent emotion."