"But you surely will put us ashore at once," said the girl, after she had drunk tea and changed her clothes. They were eating gingerly of ship's food and drinking water ravenously.
"That I cannot do, miss," said the captain. "I'm bound to Valparaiso with cargo, and I must take it there."
"But we will pay you to take us ashore—pay you anything, for I am very rich," said the girl.
The master smiled sadly. The effects of the forty hours in the open boat were evidently having their effect upon the young woman.
"No," he said, "you go below, and the steward will give you all you want to eat, and your clothes will be dry enough to put on again before night. We might fall in with a ship bound north any time now. Then you'll have a chance."
James knew the man was within his rights, of course. He was glad to be in the schooner. The sailor didn't seem to mind where he went. One ship was very much like another to him. The consul would be bound to ship him home, anyway. The girl was given a stateroom in the after cabin; and she soon slept the sleep of the exhausted.
The mate stayed on deck. The whole thing had a strange look to him. He had decided to kill himself. He dared not go back to the States, anyhow, to face the charges that would be made against him. He might slip overboard any night on the run down, and no one would be the wiser.
The fact that the schooner was bound to South America seemed to give him a respite. There was no hurry to commit the desperate act that he felt he must, in all honor and decency, do. He might live a month at least before dying.
After the awful struggle through the gale and shipwreck, he felt a desire to live more than before. The whole affair was more distant, almost effaced. And now he was not going back, anyhow.
The captain asked him few questions regarding his wreck, seeming to feel a certain delicacy about it. The day passed, and the next and the next, and no ship was sighted going north. They were now drawing out of the track of vessels, and a strange hope arose with the mate that they would not meet one.