“‘You know,’ said Captain Guy to me, ’I couldn’t do that, for I’d lost time enough already, and the wind was very light and variable; so all I could do was to vow to the ladies that when we got to Lisbon we’d be bound to find a steamer going south, and that she could easily keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and take off the friend.’  ’That was a pretty big contract you marked out for the steamer going south,’ I said, ’and as for the Sparhawk, she’s an old derelict, and I sighted her on my voyage north, and sent in a report of her position, and there couldn’t have been anybody on board of her then.’  ‘Can’t say,’ said Captain Guy; ’from what I can make out, this fellow must have boarded her a good while after she was abandoned, and seems to have been lying low after that.’  Was that so, sir?  Did you lie low?”

I made no answer.  My whole soul was engaged in the comprehension of the fact that Bertha had sent for me.  “Go on!” I cried.

“All right,” said he.  “I ought not to keep you waiting.  I promised Captain Guy I would keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and take you off if you were on board.  I promised the quicker, because my conscience was growling at me for having, perhaps, passed a fellow-being on an abandoned vessel.  But I had heard of the Sparhawk before.  I had sighted her, and so didn’t keep a very sharp lookout for living beings aboard.  Then Captain Guy took me on board his ship to see the two ladies, for they wanted to give me instructions themselves.  And I tell you what, sir, you don’t often see two prettier women on board ship, nor anywhere else, for that matter.  Captain Guy told me that before I saw them.  He was in great spirits about his luck.  He is the luckiest fellow in the merchant service.  Now, if I had picked up two people that way, it would have been two old men.  But he gets a couple of lovely ladies; that’s the way the world goes.  The ladies made me pretty nigh swear that I’d never set foot on shore till I found you.  I would have been glad enough to stay there all day and make promises to those women; but my time was short, and I had to leave them to Captain Guy.  So I did keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and heard of her from two vessels coming north, and finally fell in with you.  And a regular lunatic you were when I took you on board; but that’s not to be wondered at; and you seem to be all right now.”

“Did you not bring me any message from them?” I asked.

“Oh, yes; lots,” said the captain.  “Let me see if I can remember some of them.”  And then he knit his brows and tapped his head, and repeated some very commonplace expressions of encouragement and sympathy.

The effect of these upon me was very different from what the captain had expected.  I had hoped for a note, a line—­anything direct from Bertha.  If she had written something which would explain the meaning of those last words from Mary Phillips, whether that explanation were favorable or otherwise, I would have been better satisfied; but now my terrible suspense must continue.