ecaution.
That's what the killin' was for, and I'll bet a clipper-ship to a
doughnut-hole that writin' chap Trenhum knows about it, and he ain't no
writin' chap, neither. Thar has been bad business, and there'll be more
from what's below, mark my words. Come below and look at it."

"You looked it over in good shape with a light," said Captain Riggs,
evidently in doubt as to what he should do. "It ought to be on the
manifest, you know, Mr. Harris."

"Cuss the manifest! It's down as machinery and marked tinned milk. What
more ye want? They got things switched somehow, and that's plain as
the nose on yer face. I had my thumb on it, I tell ye."

"Then, if that is true, it explains why Mr. Trego was so mysterious, and
why he wanted to be a passenger to the others. That's what he was aboard
for, right enough, and like as not he would have told me if he had been
left alive long enough. It don't strike me reasonable that he'd keep
anything like that from me--not with the way things are going these days.
The master of the vessel ought to know in a case like that, and a
scraped-up crew." Riggs began to button his coat.

"Of course that was what he was so close-jawed for, and that's why the
owners was so close-jawed. Like as not they didn't know--charter was for
cargo, and they didn't bother their head about that part of it. Some sort
of a sneak game about it, of course, but we've got to mind our P's and
Q's now.

"The owners nor the charter party can't help us none with it now, say I,
and as master ye're got to do as ye see fit. All this monkey-business
to-night comes from it. I don't like the passengers and I don't like
these new whites in the crew. They know one another, I'm tellin' ye. The
long chap and Buckrow sailed with Petrak. They pretend they don't know
one another--all bosh--thick as fleas when no one is a watchin' of 'em.

"See how Buckrow was so smart handin' over his knife to the red chap when
he got in a jam? I say, where did we git them three jewels--the writin'
chap brought the little red killer, and the parson brought the long
fellow and Buckrow. Looks funny to me, cap'n--and we don't want no
Devil's Admiral aboard of us."

"Mr. Harris!" exclaimed Captain Riggs getting to his feet, "you are not
fool enough to believe stories about the Devil's Admiral, are you? That's
all newspaper talk and water-front gossip."

"I ain't so doggone sure about that, cap'n--bein' gossip. Of course, I
don't suspect nothin' l