"Yes, my only one, and all I have to tie to. My boy was lost at sea and his wife with him. And she is all there is left. She's sailed with me since she was ten years old. She's most thirteen now, and I never lost a man or a spar before."
The broken ship-master fell to brooding again, and there was so much grief in his tired eyes and uncertain voice that David forbore to ask him any more questions. When he went forward again, David sought the forecastle to learn what he could about the lone seaman of the Pilgrim's crew. A group of Roanoke hands were listening to the story of the loss of the bark as told by the battered man with bandaged head and one arm in a sling who sat propped in a spare bunk. The cadets were forbidden to loaf in the forecastle, and after a word or two David lingered in the doorway, where he could hear the sailor's voice rise and fall in such fragments of his tale as these:
"Broke his heart in two to lose her ... American-built bark of the good old times, the Pilgrim was ... me the only Yankee seaman aboard, too ... I'll ship out of New York in one of these tin pots, I guess.... No, the old man ain't likely to find another ship.... He's down and out.... I'm sorry for him and the little girl. She's all right, she is."
The Roanoke was nearing port at a twenty-knot gait, and the cadets were hard at work helping to make the great ship spick and span for her stately entry at New York. Now and then David Downes found an errand to the second cabin deck, hoping to find Captain Bracewell's granddaughter strong enough to leave her room. But he had to content himself with talking to the master of the Pilgrim, who was like a man benumbed in mind and body. He was all adrift and the future was black with doubts and fears. He had lived and toiled and dared in his lost bark for twenty years. David could understand something of his emotions. His father had been one of this race of old-fashioned seamen, and the boy could recall his sorrow at seeing the American sailing ships vanish one by one from the seas they had ruled. Captain Bracewell was fit for many active years afloat, but he was too old to begin at the foot of the ladder in steam vessels, and there was the slenderest hope of his finding a command in the kind of a ship he had lost.
These thoughts haunted David and troubled his sleep. But he did not realize how much he was taking the tragedy to heart until the afternoon of the last day out. He was overjoyed to see the "little girl" snuggled in a chair beside her grandfather. She was so slight and delicate by contrast with the ship-master's rugged bulk that she looked like a drooping white flower nestled against a rock. But her eyes were brave and her smile was bright, as her grandfather called out:
"David Downes, ahoy! Here's my Margaret that wants to know the fine big boy I've been telling her so much about."
Boy and girl gazed at each other with frank interest and curiosity. Even before David had a chance to know her, he felt as if he were her big brother standing ready to help her in any time of need. Margaret was the first to speak:
"I wish I could have seen you swimming off to the poor old Pilgrim. Oh, but that was splendid."
David blushed and made haste to say:
"I haven't had a chance to do anything for you aboard ship. I wish I could hear how you are after you get ashore."