![Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys [sic] Story of the Sea and its Perils - Ellis Edward Sylvester](/cover_222094.jpg "Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys [sic] Story of the Sea and its Perils - Ellis Edward Sylvester")
men as if trying to recollect where she was and who they were.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat anything that was ever heard or read of before!” exclaimed the captain, turning about and staring at her. “Where in the name of the seven wonders did you come from?”
Abe Storms, the mate, did not speak, but seemed to be waiting to see whether the child had a voice, and thus settle the question in his mind as to whether it was mortal or not.
The problem was quickly solved, for Inez was never backward in asserting her individuality.
“How did I come here? That’s a great question to ask! I got tired and lay down to sleep, and have just woke up. I think this is a real nice boat. Are you the captain? My name is Inez Hawthorne–what is yours?”
These questions, uttered with childish rapidity and ingenuousness, threw some light upon the apparent mystery.
“She belongs to the steamer,” said Abe Storms, with his eyes fixed wonderingly upon her. “She has managed to get in our boat in some way, and we have carried her off. Did you ever see anything so pretty?”
As the reader has learned, there was good cause for this admiring question. Both of the men were bachelors, but they possessed natural refinement, and they could reverence the innocence and loveliness of childhood. With the discovery that she was an actual human being, the awe-struck wonder of the two men vanished, though their curiosity was great to learn how it was she was carried away from the steamer.
“Won’t you come here and talk with me?” asked Storms, reaching out his arms invitingly, but a little doubtful whether she would respond, though the stoop-shouldered inventor was always popular with children. The answer of Inez was a sudden spring, which landed her plump into the lap of the mate, while she flung her arms around his neck with a merry laugh, and then wheeled about on his knee, so that she could look in the face of either of the men, who, not unnaturally, felt a strange and strong attraction toward the beautiful child.
Then the two began a series of questions that were answered in the characteristic fashion of childhood, but from which the friends succeeded in extracting something like a clear explanation of her presence on board the Coral– so many miles from the steamer on which she had set sail at San Francisco.
They learned that Inez–who was such a pet on the Polynesia that she was allowed to do as she chose–was invited by one of the crew to visit the Coral, while she lay so close to the disabled steamer. The one who gave this invitation was Hyde Brazzier, and he was struck with the wonderful loveliness of the child, when she questioned him about the schooner.
There is no nature, however steeped in crime, in which there is not a divine spark which may be fanned into a flame–which, perchance, may illumine the whole soul; and but for the subsequent strange events, little Inez Hawthorne might have proved, in the most literal sense, a heaven-sent messenger upon that craft, which carried so much wickedness in the forecastle.
Brazzier rowed the short intervening distance, and then took the child by the hand and showed her through the schooner, there being little to exhibit. Finally she was led into the cabin, where she said she was tired and wished to lie down. Thereupon Brazzier lifted her upon the captain’s berth and drew the coverlet over her. A minute later the weary eyes closed in slumber and he left the cabin.
Brazzier had no intention, up to this time, of using any deception in the matter; but, under the persuasion of Redvignez, he gave way to the innate wickedness of his nature, and chuckled over the lamentable occurrence. They felt pleasure in the certainty that what they were doing was sure to make other hearts ache.
CHAPTER VI
“PORT YOUR HELM!”
When a thorough search of the steamer Polynesia made known the truth that little Inez Hawthorne was nowhere upon it, the sorrowful conclusion was that she had fallen overboard in some manner and been drowned.
But the belief was scarcely formed, when the discovery was made that such was not the case; that in fact she had been taken away by the schooner Coral, whose mate performed such good service in mending the broken shaft of the Polynesia.
The story as told Captain Strathmore was as follows:
The two officers of the schooner were rowed to the steamer by one of the crew, who climbed up the ladder at the side of the Polynesia, and spent a few minutes in inspecting the broken shaft. He then came back. His attention was attracted to little Inez, whose childish curiosity was excited by the appearance of a stranger who had but one eye, and who looked so different from the trim-looking members of the steamer’s crew. The two fell into conversation, and Inez asked so many questions about the schooner that the stranger invited her to take a look at it. He was heard to say that the captain and mate would be engaged for two or three hours, and there would be plenty of time to row the child over the intervening distance, explore the Coral, and come back before Captain Bergen and his mate would be ready to leave.
Naturally, Inez gladly accepted the invitation, and the sinister-looking man, picking her up, carefully descended the ladder to his small boat, and rowed away to the schooner.
This story, it will be observed, corresponded with that told by Brazzier himself.
No one thought anything of the proceeding, which was one of the most natural in the world, and there was nothing to arouse misgiving on the part of those who witnessed it.
Inez was almost a spoiled child from the indulgence shown her by every one with whom she came in contact. She distrusted no one, because she had never had any reason to do so. It was night when the officers of the schooner were rowed back, and those who had seen Inez taken away did not observe that the boat returned without her. Holding no thought of anything wrong, they gave no further attention to the strange sailor.
The moment Captain Strathmore learned these facts, he caused an abrupt change to be made in the course of the Polynesia. For he was determined that no effort should be spared to recover the lost child, who had so endeared herself to every one on board the steamer.
The precise point where the accident had befallen the shaft was recorded on the log, as a matter of course, and it was within the power of the chief officer to return wonderfully close to that spot. If the schooner Coral should remain anywhere in that latitude and longitude, she could be found and Inez recovered.
“But it is not likely the schooner is near there,” reflected Captain Strathmore, as he swept the horizon with his glass and failed to catch sight of a sail. “They could not have taken away the child ignorantly, and instead of remaining there or attempting to find us, the captain has headed in some direction which is not the one he named, as if by accident, when he was aboard.”
The captain was in that mood that it would have been dangerous for him to come upon the daring thieves. He could conceive of no explanation that would relieve them from his wrath, and as the steamer described a huge curve in the sea and headed toward the point where he hoped to gain sight of the sail, full steam was put on, and she ran at a rate of speed which, in the condition of her shaft, was certainly dangerous to a high degree.
It may be said there was not a heart on board the Polynesia that did not share in the general anxiety, and there was scarcely an eye that did not scan the broad ocean again and again in the hope of catching sight of the schooner.
Several sails were descried in the course of the day, but not one was that of the Coral, and when the night descended not only had there been a complete failure, but the captain was convinced that it was useless for him to delay the steamer by hunting further.
