For a time no one spoke. I stared stupidly at the sailor, noticing that the buttons on his pea-jacket did not match and wondering if he always sewed them on himself. Mrs. Ranck had fallen back into her tall rocking-chair, where she gyrated nervously back and forth, the left rocker creaking as if it needed greasing. Why was it that I could not burst into a flood of tears, or wail, or shriek, or do anything to prove that I realized myself suddenly bereft of the only friend I had in all the world? There was an iron band around my forehead, and another around my chest. My brain was throbbing under one, and my heart trying desperately to beat under the other. Yet outwardly I must have appeared calm enough, and the fact filled me with shame and disgust. An orphan, now, and alone in the world. This father whom the angry seas had engulfed was the only relative I had known since my sweet little mother wearied of the world and sought refuge in Heaven, years and years ago. And while father sailed away on his stout ship the “Saracen” I was left to the care of the hard working but crabbed and cross old woman whom I had come to call, through courtesy and convenience, “Aunt,” although she was no relation whatever to me. Now I was alone in the world. Father, bluff and rugged, so strong and resourceful that I had seldom entertained a fear for his safety, was lying dead in the far away island of Andros, and his boy must hereafter learn to live without him. The sailor, obviously uneasy at the effect of his ill tidings, now rose to go; but at his motion Mrs. Ranck seemed suddenly to recover the use of her tongue, and sternly bade him resume his seat. Then she plied him with questions concerning the storm and the catastrophe that followed it, and the man answered to the best of his ability. Captain Steele was universally acknowledged one of the best and most successful seamen Batteraft had ever known. Through many years of trading in foreign parts he had not only become sole owner of the “Saracen,” but had amassed a fortune which, it was freely stated in the town, was enough to satisfy the desires of any man. But this was merely guess-work on the part of his neighbors, for when ashore the old sailor confided his affairs to no one, unless it might have been to Mrs. Ranck. For the housekeeper was a different person when the Captain was ashore, recounting her own virtues so persistently, and seeming so solicitous for my comfort, that poor father stood somewhat in awe of her exceptional nobility of character. As soon as he had sailed she dropped the mask, and was often unkind; but I never minded this enough to worry him with complaints, so he was unconscious of her true nature.