“Hum-m, and he saw you go ashore with Cary in the evening, Miss Fernandez. I noticed him stalking about and muttering to himself. He left the ship soon after that.”
“Ah, I believe it was a dream to warn me,” murmured Teresa, “but it was too late to save Mr. Cary.”
“Oh, I won’t say it is as bad as all that. I’ll toddle ashore right away and have a look around. Ten to one Dick Cary will come galloping aboard just before the whistle blows, as fresh as paint and with some extraordinary yarn or other.”
“You wish to jolly poor Teresa Fernandez,” said she. “Are you sure the captain will not help to find him?”
“Rather! Cary was unlucky enough to puncture his self-esteem, a most painful wound. It was the plump flapper with the bobbed hair—Captain Sterry was on the bridge with her—Cary snickered. And there you are. One of those momentous trifles. Life is like that.”
“I know,” said Teresa. “Captain Sterry is mushy sometimes. I have seen it with some other young girls. I know men pretty well. That was enough to queer Mr. Cary, all right. Well, Mr. McClement, I must go back to my job. You will tell me, if you find out anything?”
“Like a shot. Cary is not going to lose you if he can help it. Remember that. You can gamble on him to break out of almost any kind of a jam he gets into. I hope to God you and I are a pair of false alarms.”
Teresa had no more to say. The chief engineer was inserting the buttons in the cuffs of a fresh shirt. She walked slowly along the passage, scarcely seeing where she went. Richard Cary was dead. She said the words to herself. They hammered in her brain, over and over again, like the strokes of the galleon’s bell. No other reason accounted for his disappearance.
The air in the passage reeked with steam and oil. It was also intensely hot. She felt faint. Steadying herself, she opened a door to the lower deck. She leaned on the railing and stared at the blue harbor and the dazzling sea beyond. A slight breeze fanned her cheek. The vitality returned to her lithe and slender body. This was no time to be weak, to play the coward. She had never flinched from life. It was something to be a Fernandez of Cartagena. They had never whimpered when they held the losing cards.
Mr. Schwartz, the corpulent chief steward, prowling in search of whom he might annoy, discovered her at the railing. He began to growl, noticed her pallor, and changed his tune to say: