Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/249

 "'The master's took sick,' says I to the mate o' the Singapore. 'I'm skipperin' this vessel now.'

"I sent the boy thet hed set me aboard back to the Bella with orders to my mate to foller the Singapore, an' I brung both o' them schooners into port. An' I'll never forget—not so long's I live—the Bella a-follerin' me home. Oh, she was the purty one! An' what broke my heart was thet I wasn't aboard of her thet last trip, 'cause I never sailed her no more."

"They took her away from you?" Joan asked.

"Course they did," the poor Captain said. "Told me I was gettin' purty old to hev a ship. 'T was six year ago, an' I was a sight ruggeder'n I be now, an' thet's a good deal. Them was the reasons they guv, but any fool knew, o' course, why 't was. I expected it, but lordy, what could I do, ma'am? 'T ain't right; 't ain't right, seems so. The ol' Singapore she's still a-potterin' up an' down, but they guv the Bella to a young chap wasn't fit to be mate of a lighter, an' he lost her a month arter jest by plumb carelessness; lost her, an' they saved nawthin' off of her. Jest gone in her prime, like her she was named fer. I'm glad