This she was trying to do when there came a knock on the door and Captain Truscoe was saying:
“You were right. I heard the bell just now, off the starboard bow. It’s not bright enough to see far, but I’ll try to find out what that bell is.”
“But I never heard it again,” she exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. You are all battened down like a bottle, inside here. There is no trouble about picking up the sound of the bell on deck.”
Teresa flew into the oilskin coat. She was out of the cabin in a twinkling. Clear and musical came the voice of the galleon bell. It was ringing persistently, flinging out a brazen appeal, nor could Teresa detect the cadenced and ominous intervals of four bells. She understood why she alone had heard it so faintly in the night. Her ear was sensitively attuned to its vibrations. They had been an intimate part of her existence.
Now the bell was ringing for all to hear. It was somewhere in the gray waste of sea, mysterious and invisible. Teresa was reminded of the miracle of the marble pulpit which had been wonderfully borne up to float with the fickle currents until it was cast ashore under the wall of Cartagena, to be carried to the cathedral in devout procession.
“Santa Marta and the angels!” she piously exclaimed, crossing herself. “But I can see no ship at all, Captain Truscoe, and what is the bell of Nuestra Señor del Rosario doing out there in the ocean and making so much noise?”
“Gone mad, I should say. It may be on the bottom and a mermaid is pulling the clapper.”
“It is floating, I tell you!” joyously cried Teresa, who was not mad at all. “For once it rings good news. You can know that by the way it sounds. It is time for a blessed miracle to happen to poor Teresa.”
Captain Truscoe wiped his binocular and gazed again. Daylight was driving the mists away. The lowering clouds were lifting. A clear sunrise was heralded. A dark speck was discovered against the heaving sea. The yacht plunged toward it, flinging the green water aside. The speck grew larger. Underneath it was a white ruffle of foam like surf playing on the back of a reef.