"Don't leave us cut off short like
this. We want to hear it all."
"Well, we managed to find a lantern, so that we could go on with our
investigations. Evidently, there had been foul play of some kind, for
the cabin plainly showed signs of a fierce scrimmage. There was blood
on the walls and floor; one or two rusty weapons lay about, and on one
was human hair. I shouldn't have thought to look further, but a cry
from Tower called me into the bit of an after-cabin, fitted up with
bunks, and there lying flat, face downwards and head towards the door,
as if she had fallen while running out, was an Arab woman."
"And she was dead?" whispered Hope hoarsely.
"Yes, and in the bunk was her baby, a little thing not many months old.
I tell you, it was pitiful!"
"Oh!" breathed Faith, "do you suppose it was left to starve?"
"I'm afraid so. I think the mother heard the fighting and started to
run out, leaving her child safely hidden, when her husband was
attacked, but was felled by a blow on the head. We saw the marks."
"Horrible!" Hope covered her eyes, and the captain sprang up.
"I ought not to have told you. It was bad enough to see it myself,
hardened as I am. Now I must go. Do you want one of the women to come
and stay with you?"
"No," said both, and he hurried out, but at the door was arrested by
Hope.
"One question more--did you bury them too, papa?"
"Yes."
"In the same way?"
"Yes."
She drew a long, sighing breath as he disappeared, and turning clasped
Faith close with a sob of overwrought feeling.
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