“Brave chap!” muttered Weeks. “Where is he now?”
“There,” she said, pointing to the open door of the stateroom in which Swivel was lying. “He is hurt.”
“But that doesn’t explain how ye got here, miss,” said the sailor suspiciously.
“I hadn’t got to that, Mr. Leroyd. Had you been men, you would not have left me to drown as you did, and then there would have been no necessity for my remaining for three days on these two vessels.”
“You misjudge us, I assure you,” Weeks hastened to say, as Leroyd shrank back at the girl’s scornful words. “Both Leroyd and I were in one boat and the second mate was in the other boat. He declared you to be safe, and I thought, and so did Mr. Leroyd, that you were with him.
“It was not until we were picked up by the schooner Natchez, of Bermuda, and carried to those islands, that we discovered your deplorable loss.”
But Milly did not believe this plausible story. She had too vivid a remembrance of Leroyd and the cowardly Weeks during the gale, to be impressed by this tale.
“This brig passed the Success on the second day after you left me, and we made a raft and came to it, because it was so much more seaworthy than papa’s vessel,” said Milly coldly.
“You say this boy is hurt, eh?” said Weeks, stepping around to the stateroom door and peering in at Swivel, who was sleeping heavily despite the sound of voices. “Gee! he does look bad, doesn’t he?”
“Well, wot in thunder shall we do?” growled Leroyd at length. “We’ve got no time to spend in fooling, Al. No knowing what that—that other craft is.”