The Girl of the Golden Gate

by William Brown Meloney

It was a disingenuous, awkward speech. Ill at ease he hurried on to tell her of the Daphne's position by the observations he had just made; of the plans he had formed. All the while he talked, a thought, which had been with him ever since the moment of madness in the galley and which had lashed him all through the morning, sprinkled salt on the wounds in his conscience.

"I felt as if I were committing a sacrilege when I went into the little room where the cedar chest is," Emily told him as they went forward to prepare luncheon. "The chest is filled with a girl's wedding things. The hat—the baby slip—I laid them away carefully and shut the lid on them."

She looked at the sea with a shudder. Paul noticed this and realized that he must fight, too, to keep his companion's mind on pleasant things. He quickly directed her thoughts to the future, explaining the division of labor that must be theirs and the vigilance they must keep to win a triumph of the sea. Her interest was enlisted more easily than he imagined it would be, for her thoughts were busy with a future which was calling her in all the beauty of life.

Emily insisted upon preparing the luncheon, permitting Paul only to shake up the fire. She did it well and, the while she was about it, he took the opportunity to reëxamine the Daphne's log. He hoped to glean from it some things which might aid him in the navigation of the bark. It served, however, only to deepen the mystery.

It was a clean record of routine for two weeks after the departure from Sydney. The crew had been received aboard on Christmas night. It was not hard to visualize the condition of the lot on such a day—the sorriest day in the year for an outward-bound. The following morning she had sailed—three months and eight days gone, or, as Elston had written at noon of the 29th: "Our 96th day at sea from Sydney." This was the 98th day.

The first thing to seize Paul's professional eye importantly was the absence of any designation of second or third mate. If the Daphne had sailed without these officers then they must have been recruited afterward from the forecastle gang. There was no telling from the names of the sixteen members of the crew who these might have been. The list comprehended every nationality under the sun.

At the end of the first two weeks three pages had been torn from the book. A week later another page was missing. There was not a week of the entire ninety-six days up to the hour of abandonment which was complete. Of course, it was plain to Lavelle that the man or men who had defaced the book had done so to destroy something that had been written against him or them.

"But why not have hove the book overboard and been done with it?" Paul asked himself. He could not answer the question.

The Daphne had spoken no other vessels; sighted no sail so far as the log disclosed. Fair weather had attended her to the equator, which she had crossed on the fiftieth day out with a proper casting—Longitude 119 west. This was in the track made by sailing vessels bound from Australia to the west coast of the United States. Then had followed calms until she had fallen in with the northeast trades in Latitude 8 north, but there was no word to explain why she thereafterward had been steered into this western sea more than two thousand miles off the course she should have held!

Emily's summons to luncheon made Paul lay aside the log. It was a surprisingly good and substantial meal that she had whipped together. While they ate Paul undertook the gold woman's drilling in the details of working a ship. On the island he and Chang had filled in many a dreary minute with talk of ships. Chang had taught her how to box the compass, and she was proud now, indeed, to exhibit this knowledge—eager to put it to use. Her experience in the boat had taught her much, too. She surprised Paul and made him proud of the intelligence with which she was able to comprehend his explanations.