left--I and little Teresa."

Packenham held out his hands to the child. With wondering, timid eyes,
she came, and for a moment or two looked doubtingly upwards into the
brown, handsome face of the skipper, and then nestled beside him.

For a minute or so the ticking of the cabin clock broke the silence,
ere I ventured to ask the one question uppermost in my mind.

"Nerida, how and where did Taplin die?"

"My husband was murdered at sea," she said and then she covered her
face with her hands.

"Don't ask her any more now," said Packenham pityingly; "let her tell
us to-morrow."

She raised her face. "Yes, I will tell you to-morrow. You will take me
away with you, will you not, gentlemen--for my child's sake?"

"Of course," said the captain promptly. And he stretched out his honest
hand to her.


* * * * *


"She's a wonderfully pretty woman," said Packenham, as we walked the
poop later on, and he glanced down through the open skylight to where
she and the child slept peacefully on the cushioned transoms. "How