All this began to make me very nervous. Perhaps the man was a messenger—a bearer of news. And if so his tale must have an evil complexion, to judge by his manner and Mrs. Ranck’s stern face. I felt like shrinking back, like running away from some calamity that was about to overtake me. But I did not run. Boy though I was, and very inexperienced in the ways of life, with its troubles and tribulations, I knew that I must stay and hear all; and I braced myself for the ordeal. “Tell me, please,” I said, and my voice was so husky and low that I could scarce hear it myself. “Tell me; is—is it about—my father?” The man nodded. “It’s about the Cap’n,” he said, looking stolidly into Mrs. Ranck’s cold features, as if striving to find in them some assistance. “I was one as sailed with him las’ May aboard the ‘Saracen.’” “Then why are you here?” I cried, desperately, although even as I spoke there flashed across my mind a first realization of the horror the answer was bound to convey. “’Cause the ‘Saracen’ foundered off Lucayas,” said the sailor, with blunt deliberation, “an’ went to the bottom, ’th all hands—all but me, that is. I caught a spar an’ floated three days an’ four nights, makin’ at last Andros Isle, where a fisherman pulled me ashore more dead’n alive. That’s nigh three months agone, sir. I’ve had fever sence—brain fever, they called it—so I couldn’t bring the news afore.” I felt my body swaying slightly, and wondered if it would fall. Then I caught at a ray of hope. “But my father, Captain Steele? Perhaps he, also, floated ashore!” I gasped. The sailor shook his head, regretfully. “None but me was saved alive, sir,” he answered, in a solemn voice. “The tide cast up a many o’ the ‘Saracen’ corpses, while I lay in the fever; an’ the fisher folks give ’em a decent burial. But they saved the trinkets as was found on the dead men, an’ among ’em was Cap’n Steele’s watch an’ ring. I kep’ ’em to bring to you. Here they be,” he continued, simply, as he rose from his chair to place a small chamois bag reverently upon the table. Mrs. Ranck pounced upon it and with trembling fingers untied the string. Then she drew forth my father’s well-known round silver watch and the carbuncle ring he had worn upon his little finger ever since I could remember.