ight have met the message. At last I
saw that I should never meet it. When I became convinced of this, my
first impulse was to spring overboard and swim for it. But I restrained
this impulse, as I had restrained others like it. If Bertha came back,
I must be ready to meet her. I must run no risks, for her sake and my
sake. She must find me on the _Sparhawk_ if she should come back. She
had left me and she had come back; she might come back again. Even to
get her message I must not run the risk of missing her. And so with
yearning heart and perhaps tearful eyes I watched the little craft
disappear and become another derelict.

I do not know how many days and nights I watched and waited for
Bertha's ship and wondered and conjectured what Mary Phillips meant by
"but." I was awake so much and ate so little and thought so hard that I
lost strength, both of mind and body. All I asked of my body was to
look out for Bertha's steamer, and all that I asked of my mind was to
resolve the meaning of the last words I had heard from that vessel.

One day, I do not know whether it was in the morning or afternoon, I
raised my head, and on the horizon I saw a steamer. Quick as a flash my
glass was brought to bear upon it. In the next minute my arms dropped,
the telescope fell into my lap, my head dropped. It was not Bertha's
steamer; it was an ordinary steamer with its deck parallel with the
water and a long line of smoke coming out of its funnel. The shock of
the disappointment was very great.

When I looked up again I could see that the steamer was headed directly
toward me, and was approaching with considerable rapidity. But this
fact affected me little. It would not bring me Bertha. It would not
bring me any message from her. It was an ordinary vessel of traffic. I
took no great interest in it, one way or the other.

Before long it was so near that I could see people on board. I arose
and looked over the rail. Then some one on the steamer fired a gun or a
pistol. As this seemed to be a signal, I waved my hat. Then the steamer
began to move more slowly, and soon lay to and lowered a boat.

In ten minutes three men stood on the deck of the _Sparhawk_. Some one
had hailed me in English to lower something. I had lowered nothing; but
here they were on deck. They asked me a lot of questions, but I
answered none of them.

"Is your captain with you?" I said. They answered that he was not,
that he was on the steamer. "Then take me to h