And then the captain took a tumble to himself. The little girl knew nothing about the man murdered in the boat from the wreck of the Galland.
“Well, it’s a serious thing—for me—to have let him get away without his going before the authorities,” Captain Bowditch growled.
That was not exactly true however. Nobody would blame him because the Hindoo had departed. But the old man said he would take us both up town right after dinner. I begged for a little time to make myself presentable and was given an hour’s leave ashore. I found a barber and got my hair trimmed properly and then went to a second hand shop and got an outfit of coat, pants and shoes, with a new hat for six dollars. Nothing very fashionable, you may be sure; but I reckoned the butler would let me into the house with ’em on—by the side door, at least!
So the captain and Philly and I walked over to the British consulate and saw a young man with eyeglasses and something of a lisp, dressed in clothes that could not possibly be made so badly anywhere else but in London. He was a nice young man, though; and he insisted upon making tea for Philly when he heard that she had been two weeks in an open boat, as though she might still need a “pick-me-up” because of that adventure.
It seemed that he had already heard of the loss of the Galland. Her burned hull had been sighted by two steamships and reported before the Gullwing arrived in port. But none of the crew or passengers of the ill-fated ship, until Phillis Duane came, had been reported as saved. The Galland had been posted as a complete loss, with crew and passengers.
“What puzzles me,” said the English official, “is the distance the Galland and the boat you found drifted apart. Her bulk was reported as sighted only a day or two after your Gullwing picked up the little girl and the Hindoo.” The captain had already explained about Dao Singh. “Yet,” continued the consul, “the Galland had drifted far up the coast in the steamship route—she’s a dangerous derelict, and has been so reported to the Hydrographic office at Washington, and to Lloyds in London.
“Whereas, Captain, the latitude and longitude you give is far, far to the south. South of the Straits, in fact.”
“Three hunder’ mile sou’east of the Capes of the Virgin, sure enough,” admitted Captain Bowditch.
“Yes. The Galland had come through the Straits and must have met with her accident not far outside. It seems strange that only one boat got away from her—and that one improperly manned.”
“As near as we can find out, sir,” said the skipper, “she had but two seamen in her beside the Hindoo and the little girl here.”