with suspicion.

"You didn't go down with your ship, then, after all," said Captain
Bowers, who had been looking on with much interest.

Amazement held Brisket dumb. He turned and eyed Duckett inquiringly.
Then Tredgold, with his back to the others, caught his eye and frowned
significantly.

[Illustration: "Then Tredgold, with his back to the others, caught his
eye and frowned significantly."]

"If Captain Brisket didn't go down with it I am sure that he was the last
man to leave it," he said, kindly; "and Mr. Duckett last but one."

Mr. Duckett, distrustful of these compliments, cast an agonized glance at
the door.

"Stobell was a bit rough just now," said Tredgold, with another warning
glance at Brisket, "but he didn't like being shipwrecked."

Brisket gazed at the door in his turn. He had an uncomfortable feeling
that he was being played with.

"It's nothing much to like," he said, at last, but--"

"Tell us how you escaped," said Tredgold; "or, perhaps," he continued,
hastily, as Brisket was about to speak--"perhaps you would like first to
hear how we did."

"Perhaps that would be better," said the perplexed Brisket.

He nudged the mate with his elbow, and Mr. Tredgold, still keeping him
under the spell of his eye, began with great rapidity to narrate the
circumstances attending the loss of the Fair Emily. After one
irrepressible grunt of surprise Captain Brisket listened without moving a
muscle, but the changes on Mr. Duckett's face were so extraordinary that
on several occasions the narrator faltered and lost the thread of his
discourse. At such times Mr. Chalk took up the story, and once, when
both seemed at a loss, a growling contribution came from Mr. Stobell.

"Of course, you got away in the other boat," said Tredgold, nervously,
when he had finished.

Brisket looked round shrewdly, his wits hard at work. Already the
advantages of adopting a story which he supposed to have been concocted
for the benefit of Captain Bowers were beginning to multiply in his ready
brain.

"And didn't see us owing to the darkness," prompted Tredgold, with a
glance at Mr. Joseph Tasker, who was lingering by the door after bringing
in some whisky.

"You're quite right, sir," said Brisket, after a trying pause. "I didn't
see you."

Unasked he took a chair, and with crossed legs and folded arms surveyed
the company with a broad smile.

"You're a fine sort of shipmaster," exclaimed the indignant Captain
Bowe