“And how much is the gold worth?” eagerly asked Ruth, who had listened with a sympathetic expression on her face.
“That’s more than I can tell. I scarce know how to go about convertin’ it into cash; but I’m in no hurry. Now mind, Miss Ruth, not a word o’ this to any livin’ soul. Not even to your own mother, for she ain’t my mother, d’ee see, an’ has no right to know it. In fact I’ve never told it to any one till this day, for I have no one in the wide world to care about it. Once, indeed, I had—”
He stopped short.
“Ah! you are thinking of your sister?” said the sympathetic Ruth; “the sister whom you once told me about long ago.”
“Yes, Miss Ruth, I was thinkin’ o’ her; but—” He stopped again.
“Do tell me about her,” said Ruth, earnestly. “Has she been long dead?”
“Dead! my dear. I didn’t say she was dead, an’ yet it ain’t unlikely she is, for it’s long, long since I heard of her. There’s not much to tell about her after all,” said the captain, sadly. “But she was a dear sweet little girl at the time—just turned eighteen—an’ very fond o’ me. We had no parents living, an’ no kindred except one old aunt, with whom my sister lived. I was away at the time on a long voyage, and had to take a cargo from the East Indies to China before returnin’ home. At Hongkong I fell ill, an’ was laid up there for months. Altogether a good many troubles came on me at that time—though they were blessed troubles to me, for they ended in the saving o’ my soul through my eyes bein’ opened to see my sins and Jesus Christ as my Saviour. It was three years before I set foot in England again, and when I got back I found that my old aunt was dead, and that my dear sister had married a seaman and gone away—no one knew where.”
“And you’ve never heard of her since?” asked Ruth.
“Never.”
“And don’t know who she married?”