“Not that I know of,” answered the third officer. He hesitated and looked to right and left before going on to say: “It’s my notion that Captain Sterry won’t look for him, from something I heard him spill to the first mate. There is some hard feeling between them, Miss Fernandez. I can’t give you the dope on it, but the skipper doesn’t seem a mite broken-hearted over leaving Mr. Cary behind. He hasn’t lifted a finger to find him, as far as I can make out. It’s a rotten situation, believe me.”
“And you tell me the captain don’t care what has happened to Mr. Cary?” breathed Teresa, aghast at this disclosure. “He will stand the second mate’s watch on the run back to New York? I have been at sea as much as you, young man, and I give you my word this is too queer for me.”
To desert the ship herself, to use her own intelligent energy in the quest of the missing man, this was Teresa’s natural impulse. She knew Cartagena, on the surface intimately, beneath the surface by hearsay. It would be foolish, perhaps, to do such a thing until the very last moment. She would wait before making up her mind, wait until the whistle blew to cast off from the wharf.
Her superior officer, the chief steward, had seldom found fault with Miss Fernandez, but now he noticed her frequent tours on deck and the interruptions in her routine of duty. He was a fat Swiss who perspired copiously and eternally prowled through the kitchens, the pantries, the corridors in search of delinquencies. A pudgy finger beckoned the stewardess, and a hoarse voice barked:
“Miss Fernandez, I haf got to call you down. You vill lose your job mit me if you don’t mind it better. Vat is all dis rubberin’ and beatin’ it upstairs and down again? Here is dot woman in number seventeen ringin’ like hell and tellin’ her cabin steward she can’t get you.”
“That woman in seventeen ought to be poisoned, Mr. Schwartz,” sniffed Teresa. “All she does is eat, eat. I know what she wants now, orange juice and biscuit and a little fruit. My gracious, for breakfast I took that woman a cereal, a melon, bacon and eggs, fish, fried potatoes, and a stack of toast. She is suffering with a nervous breakdown and must be careful of herself, she tells me. You let her ring is my advice, Mr. Schwartz.”
The chief steward mopped his dripping jowls and sulkily retorted: “Dot woman pays big money for the cruise, a room mit bath, Miss Fernandez. Go chase yourself on the job, and no more runnin’ all over the ship like a crazy girl. Vas you smugglin’ or somethings? You mind your step. I can get plenty of goot stewardesses in New York for the Tarragona.”
Teresa’s white teeth closed over her lower lip. She detested this puffy swine who was in a position to bully her. He saw the temper flare in her black eyes and awaited the explosion. To his surprise she held herself in check. Her voice was almost indifferent as she replied:
“Yes, Mr. Schwartz. I will do as you say. I am feeling nervous this morning, not very well. I need to go on deck to get the air. But you will not have to scold me again.”
The stewardess hurried away. Mr. Schwartz gazed after her and sopped his bulging neck. The moods of Miss Fernandez were beyond him. Competent as she was, he would have preferred a Swiss or German woman. These Spanish girls were flighty. You couldn’t keep up mit ’em.