Shadrach, who was smoking, took his pipe from his mouth.

“Well, give him the answer then,” he said, shortly.  “You know what ’tis, well as I do.”

Zoeth looked troubled.

“I know you don’t want to keep her,” he said, “but—­”

“Who said I didn’t?”

“Who?  Why, Shadrach Gould!  You said—­”

“I said a good many things maybe; but that’s nothin’.  You knew what I meant as well as I did.”

“Why, Shadrach!  You—­you don’t mean you are willin’ to keep her—­here, with us, for good?  You don’t mean that?”

The Captain snorted impatiently.  “Don’t be so foolish, Zoeth,” he protested.  “You knew plaguey well I never meant anything else.”

CHAPTER VII

The next day Captain Shadrach drove to Ostable and spent several hours in consultation with Judge Baxter.  Adjusting matters by correspondence is a slow process at best, and the Captain, having surrendered unconditionally, was not the man to delay.

“I can settle more in ten minutes’ talk,” he told his partner, “than the three of us could in a month’s letter-writin’, especially if I had to write any of the letters.  I never was any hand to write letters; you know that, Zoeth.  And when I do write one the feller I send it to is liable to come around and ask me to read it ’cause he can’t.  Like as not I can’t either, if it’s had time to get cold, and there we are, right where we started.  No, I’ll go and see the Judge and when I fetch port tonight there’ll have been somethin’ done.”

This prophecy was fulfilled.  Before the Captain left Ostable for the homeward drive a good deal had been done.  Judge Baxter, in his capacity as administrator, had already been looking into the affairs of his late client and, as he had expected, those affairs were badly tangled.  When the outstanding debts were paid there would be little left, a thousand or two, perhaps, but certainly no more.

“So there you are, Shadrach,” he said.  “I’m mighty glad you and Zoeth have decided to keep the girl, but I’m afraid she’ll come to you with very little property of her own.  If she is to have the good education and all the rest that Marcellus wanted her to have I guess it’ll be your money that pays for it.  That’s the honest truth, and I think you ought to know it.”

The Captain nodded.  “That’s all right,” he said.  “I expected just about that, account of what you said the day of the funeral.  Me and Zoeth are about, as fur from bein’ rich as the ship’s cat is from bein’ skipper, but we’ve put by a little and the store fetches us in a decent livin’.  We’ll take the young-one and do our best by her.  Land knows what that best’ll be,” he added, with a dubious shake of the head.  “Speakin’ for myself, I feel that I’m about as competent to bring up a child as a clam is to fly.”

Baxter laughed.  “Marcellus seemed confident that you and Hamilton were perfectly suited to the job,” he said.