“What’s that?” asked Carney, looking at the article Orion pushed forward in the dark.  “A broken oar?”

“That’s what it is.  I found it only this morning in the hold, when I was helping stow the last of the cargo.  It was wedged in behind a timber of her frame.”

“Well?  What of it?”

“Strike a match somebody.  See what’s burned into that handle?”

Their heads were clustered about the faint glimmer of the match flame.  But the light was sufficient to reveal what ’Rion pointed out.  Burned more or less unevenly were the letters M A R L I N B.

“What do you think of that?” exclaimed ’Rion.  “Would that broken oar be aboard of this dratted schooner if she wasn’t the Marlin B. painted over and a new name give her?  What do you fellows think of it?”

There was silence in the group when the match flame died out.  It was finally the negro cook who made comment: 

“Lawsy me!” he groaned.  “Ef I had only de faith of Peter I’d up an’ walk ashore from dis here cussed schooner right now!”

CHAPTER XXV

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED

The girl whom Cap’n Ira Ball found in the kitchen of the old house on Wreckers’ Head when he hobbled out of his bedroom the next morning was not the Ida May he had been wont to find of late, ready with his shaving materials, hot water, and a clean and voluminous checked apron to be tucked in about the neckband of his shirt.

All was in readiness as usual, but the girl herself was smileless, heavy-eyed, and slack of step.  That she had suffered both in body and mind since the day before, the least observant person in the world would have easily comprehended.

“I swan, Ida May!” gasped the old man.  “Whatever’s happened to you?”

“I did not sleep well, Uncle Ira,” she told him faintly.

“Sleep?  Why you look as though you’d been standing double watch for a week of Sundays!  I never see the beat!  Has that crazy gal coming here set ye all aback this way?”

“I—­I am afraid so.”

“’Tis a shame.  I won’t stand to have that gal come here again.  Prudence has been starting and crying out all night, too.  She’s as much upset as you be.  I cal’late you don’t feel like shaving of me this morning, Ida May.”

“Oh, yes, I do, Uncle Ira!  Don’t mind how I look.”

“But I do mind,” he grumbled.  “Folks’ looks is a great p’int.  I’ve always held to it.  Talk about a singed cat being better than it looks—­I doubt it!”

“People of my complexion always look worse after a sleepless night,” explained Sheila, trying to smile at him.

“That’s a pity, too.  And I feel the need of being spruced up a good deal myself this morning, Ida May,” he continued.  “D’you see how straggly my hair is gettin’?  Do you think you could trim it a mite?”

“Why, of course I can, Uncle Ira,” she rejoined cheerfully.