“If you please,” announced a servant, whose knock had not been heard by the brother and sister, “a gentleman, whose name is Captain Gerard, wishes to speak to you.”
“Gerard! Show him in at once. Perhaps he has some important news for us, Margaret.”
“We’ll hope so. And we shall soon know.”
“Good evening, Mr. Bootle,” said Captain Gerard, advancing into the room. “You will, perhaps, be surprised to receive a visit from me so late in the day. But the truth is I have a bit of news for you that may interest you—I have seen Captain Cochrane.”
CHAPTER XV.
JUST IN TIME.
We will now, with the reader’s permission, retrace our history to the night on which the captain and passenger of the “Merry Maid” consigned to the waves the body of the man whom they firmly believed to have murdered.
The barque “Halcyon,” bound from Lisbon for Callao, was proceeding quietly on her course and had, up to now, encountered nothing out of her usual experience. The captain, contentedly smoking a big cigar, was leaning idly over the rail and scanning the horizon, on the faint chance of seeing something that would relieve the monotony of the scene. It was a fine moonlight night, but now and again a cloud, carried along a higher strata than that by which the movements of the “Halcyon” were dominated, obscured the radiance of the orb of night, and enveloped sea and sky in a temporary mantle of darkness, rendering invisible everything but the distant lights of some vessel crossing the track pursued by the “Halcyon.” Captain Quaco Pereiro, being of an adventurous disposition, would have preferred more variety in the scenery. But he was withal of a philosophical turn of mind, and never fretted for that which was unobtainable. Being content, therefore, to accept his somewhat isolated position uncomplainingly, he was nevertheless prepared to welcome relief in any form, and followed with considerable interest the course of a steamer, of which he obtained an occasional feeble glimpse, and which he concluded, from the track pursued, to be bound for the Mediterranean. Not that there was anything special about the steamer to attract his attention. But it chanced to be the nearest object in sight, therefore possibly the most profitable to observe.
But nothing occurred on board that he was near enough to distinguish, and Captain Pereiro, having finished his cigar, and having bethought himself that it would be as well to go below for a drink of wine, was raising himself up from the rail against which he had been leaning, when his eyes caught sight of a dark object bobbing quietly about on the waters, offering no resistance beyond that inert resistance which is inherent in any solid substance.
“H’m! what is that?” he questioned himself. “A log of wood? Yes—no—ah! Sancta Maria! it is the body of a man! Holy Mother, preserve us!”