re's
worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he must have filled it in
before supper. See for yourself: 'Smoke observed.--Captain Kirkup and
five hands of the schooner Currency Lass.' Ah! this is better," he
added, turning to the other log. "The old man ain't written anything for
a clear fortnight. We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal,
and stick to the old man's--to mine, I mean; only I ain't going to write
it up, for reasons of my own. You are. You're going to sit down right
here and fill it in the way I tell you."

"How to explain the loss of mine?" asked Carthew.

"You never kept one," replied the captain. "Gross neglect of duty.
You'll catch it."

"And the change of writing?" resumed Carthew. "You began; why do you
stop and why do I come in? And you'll have to sign anyway."

"O! I've met with an accident and can't write," replied Wicks.

"An accident?" repeated Carthew. "It don't sound natural. What kind of
an accident?"

Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife through
his palm.

"That kind of an accident," said he. "There's a way to draw to windward
of most difficulties, if you've a head on your shoulders." He began
to bind up his hand with a handkerchief, glancing the while over
Goddedaal's log. "Hullo!" he said, "this'll never do for us--this is an
impossible kind of a yarn. Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent
trying some fancy course, leastways he's a thousand miles to south'ard
of the great circle. And here, it seems, he was close up with this
island on the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again
by daylight on the eleventh."

"Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck," said Carthew.

"Well, it don't look like real life--that's all I can say," returned
Wicks.

"It's the way it was, though," argued Carthew.

"So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?"
cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. "Here! try
and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding like a pig."

As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient seemed sunk
in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly open. The job was yet
scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.

"I have it," he broke out, and ran on deck. "Here, boys!" he cried, "we
didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the
sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you've done with
these chests," he added, "y