The child was like so much sunshine flitting hither and thither upon the steamer, and whose presence would be sorely missed when the hour came for her to go. But Captain Strathmore was a disciplinarian, who could never forget his duty, and he remained at his post until the time came for him to go below to gain the few hours' sleep which cannot be safely dispensed with by any one, no matter how rugged his frame.
Tumbling into his berth, he stretched out with a sigh of comfort, and went to sleep.
"Inez will be in here bright and early to wake me," was his conclusion, as he closed his eyes in slumber.
But he was disappointed, for when he was called from his couch, it was not by the little one whom he expected to see. At the breakfast-table she did not appear, and then Captain Strathmore, fearing that she was ill, made inquiries. He heard nothing, and filled with a growing alarm, he instituted a thorough search of the vessel from stem to stern and high and low. Not a spot or corner was omitted where a cat could have been concealed, but she was not found.
And then the startling truth was established that little Inez Hawthorne was not on board the steamer.
"Oh!" groaned poor Captain Strathmore, "she became my own child! Now I have lost her a second time!"
Captain Strathmore rewarded Abe Storms liberally for the service he had rendered them, and the mate and captain of the schooner, as we have said, were rowed back to the boat by Hyde Brazzier.
Reaching the deck of the _Coral_, they watched the progress of the great steamer until she vanished from sight in the moonlight, and then the two friends went into the cabin to "study the chart," as they expressed it.
It may be said that this had been the principal business of the two since leaving the States, though the statement is not strictly correct. The hum of conversation went on for hours; the night gradually wore away, but still the two men sat talking in low tones, and looking at the roll of paper spread out between them, and which was covered with numerous curious drawings. The theme must have been an absorbing one, since it banished all thought of the passage of time from their minds.
"I tell you," said the captain, as he leaned back in his chair, "there isn't the remotest doubt that a colossal fortune is awaiting us, and unless some extraordinary accident intervenes, we shall gather it up."