“Your uncle?”
“No, sir.”
Ole could not be induced to say anything more about Captain Olaf, and doubtless regretted that he had even mentioned his name. The waif plainly confounded “circumstances” and property. Mr. Lowington several times returned to the main inquiry, but the young man would not even hint at the explanation of the manner in which he had come to be a waif on the North Sea, in an open boat, half full of water. He had told the captain that he was not wrecked, and had not been blown off from the coast. He would make no answer of any kind to any direct question relating to the subject.
“Well, Ole, as you will not tell me how you came in the situation in which we found you, I do not see that I can do anything for you,” continued Mr. Lowington. “The ship is bound to Christiansand, and when we arrive we must leave you there.”
“Don’t leave me in Christiansand, sir. I don’t want to be left there.”
“Why not?”
Ole was silent again. Both the principal and the surgeon pitied him, for he appeared to be a friendless orphan; certainly he had no friends to whom he wished to go, and was only anxious to remain in the ship, and go to America in her.
“You may go into the steerage now, Ole,” said the principal, despairing of any further solution of the mystery.
“Thank you, sir,” replied Ole, bowing low, and backing out of the cabin as a courtier retires from the presence of a sovereign.
“What do you make of him, doctor?” added Mr. Lowington, as the door closed upon the waif.