But these serious thoughts were of previous days. This morning I was to have some little composition ready for her when she came down. I turned to my paper and pencil and began to write. But thoughts, such thoughts as I conceived would please her, came slowly. My new conscience or it may have been the voices of the quarter-deck,--her father's questions, Captain Blaise's muffled answers, her exclamations of delight and wonder,--all these diverted me. In despair I tried to catch, as I usually could, what Captain Blaise was saying, but to-day he spoke in so low a tone that I could not quite. Ubbo came down for a chart, a particular chart which Captain Blaise has always kept apart from the others. I pointed out to him where he would find it. And my eye followed his figure up the cabin steps. In a sailor's costume Ubbo was proud but perspiring, though devotion shone out in every drop of perspiration. [Illustration: After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him] Through the skylight I saw Captain Blaise take the chart from Ubbo, unroll and scan it. "I was right. Yes, here's the spot." He was addressing Shiela. "In red ink, see, and here's about where we are now--not ten miles from here, north by east." Shiela was bending over the chart when "Sail-ho!" rang out from the lookout in the foretop. He had a grand voice, that man on watch. With one hand Captain Blaise held the chart so Shiela still could read it; with the other he reached through the skylight opening for his long glass. After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him. Shiela came below to see me. The traces of tears were in her eyes. "It's a large ship to the northward," she said. "From something Captain Blaise whispered to father it may be a man-o'-war, though I hope not. But what have you done since I've been gone? You mustn't feel put out when I have to go on deck. It's an ungrateful girl, you know, who is not courteous to her host, especially when that host is Captain Blaise. Think what father and I owe him! And what a wonderfully interesting man he is! And what adventures he has had!" "But what made you cry?" "Captain Blaise was telling of a happening on this very spot almost. It was a ship from Cadiz for Savannah. She had taken fire. He picked up among others three people lashed to some pieces of wreckage--a man, a woman, and their baby. She was dead and he dying. He did die later aboard his ship, the predecessor of the _Bess_. The baby lived. Do you recall the story?" "No, he never told me that one. And the baby?"