better than the men,
for she ups and dies one day, leavin' her baby, a year-old gal. One o'
the crew was fond o' that baby. He used to get the black nurse to put
it in the dingy, and he'd tow it astern, rocking it with the painter
like a cradle. He did it--hatin' the cap'en all the same. One day the
black nurse got out of the dingy for a moment, when the baby was
asleep, leavin' him alone with it. An idea took hold on him, jest from
cussedness, you'd say, but it was partly from revenge on the cap'en and
partly to get away from the ship. The ship was well in shore, and the
current settin' towards it. He slipped the painter--that man--and set
himself adrift with the baby. It was a crazy act, you'd reckon, for
there was n't any oars in the boat; but he had a crazy man's luck, and
he contrived, by sculling the boat with one of the seats he tore out,
to keep her out of the breakers, till he could find a bight in the
shore to run her in. The alarm was given from the ship, but the fog
shut down upon him; he could hear the other boats in pursuit. They
seemed to close in on him, and by the sound he judged the cap'en was
just abreast of him in the gig, bearing down upon him in the fog. He
slipped out of the dingy into the water without a splash, and struck
out for the breakers. He got ashore after havin' been knocked down and
dragged in four times by the undertow. He had only one idea then,
thankfulness that he had not taken the baby with him in the surf. You
kin put that down for him; it's a fact. He got off into the hills, and
made his way up to Monterey."

"And the child?" asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity
that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ruthlessly
abandoned--what became of it?"

"That's just it, the child," said the stranger, gravely. "Well, if that
man was on his death-bed instead of being here talking to you, he'd
swear that he thought the cap'en was sure to come up to it the next
minit. That's a fact. But it wasn't until one day that he--that's
me--ran across one of that crew in Frisco. 'Hallo, Cranch,' sez he to
me, 'so you got away, didn't you? And how's the cap'en's baby? Grown a
young gal by this time, ain't she?' 'What are you talking about,' sez
I; 'how should I know?' He draws away from me, and sez,'D--it,' sez he,
'you don't mean that you' ... I grabs him by the throat and makes him
tell me all. And then it appears that the boat and the baby were never
found again, and every