I haven't the pleasure of knowing
her personally, but several friends of mine are acquainted with her. I
heard the matter talked about at the time the boat was missing. Some
portions of her were picked up by other fishing boats, and by the
shattered state of some of the planks they said that she had been run
down; beside, there had been no wind about the time she disappeared,
so that there was little doubt some vessel or other had cut her down.
I happened to hear of it from Colonel Bryant, who is a friend of your
mother."
"Yes, I know him," Ralph put in.
"I have heard Colonel Bryant say that she has not altogether abandoned
hope, and still clings to the idea that you may have been run down by
some outward-bound ship and that you had been saved and carried away,
and that she declares that she shall not give up all hope until ample
time has elapsed for a ship to make the voyage to India and return."
"I am very glad of that," Ralph said. "It has been a great trouble to
me that she would be thinking all this time that I was dead. I should
not have minded having been carried away so much if I had had a chance
of writing to her to tell her about it; but I never did have a chance,
for I came home by the very first ship that left Port Royal after I
arrived there."
"But how did you get away from the French privateer--was she
captured?"
"Well, it is rather a long story, sir," Ralph said modestly.
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