nd was looking forward to a highly uncomfortable
interview with the Board of Governors: but he was concerned, too, as
an honest man; and had jumped at Mrs. Wesley's invitation to sup with
her in Johnson's Court and tell what he could.

Mr. Matthew Wesley, as host, sat at the head of his table and puffed
at a churchwarden pipe; a small, narrow-featured man, in a
chocolate-coloured suit, with steel buttons, and a wig of
professional amplitude. On his right sat his sister-in-law, her
bonnet replaced by a tall white cap: on his left the Captain in his
shore-going clothes. He and the apothecary had mixed themselves a
glass apiece of Jamaica rum, hot, with sugar and lemon-peel.
At the foot of the table, with his injured leg supported on a
cushion, reclined the Reverend Samuel Wesley, Junior, Usher of
Westminster School, his gaunt cheeks (he was the plainest-featured of
the Wesleys) wan with recent illness, and his eyes fixed on Captain
Bewes's chubby face.

"Well, as I told you, Mr. Annesley's cabin lay beside my state-room,
with a window next to mine in the stern: and, as I showed Mrs. Wesley
to-day, my stateroom opens on the 'captain's cabin' (as they call
it), where I have dined as many as two dozen before now, and where I
do the most of my work. This has three windows directly under the
big poop-lantern. I was sitting, that afternoon, at the head of the
mahogany swing table (just as you might be sitting now, sir) with my
back to the light and the midmost of the three windows wide open
behind me, for air. I had the ship's chart spread before me when my
second mate, Mr. Orchard, knocked at the door with word that all was
ready to cast off. I asked him a few necessary questions, and while
he stood there chatting I heard a splash just under my window.
Well, that might have been anything--a warp cast off and the slack of
it striking the water, we'll say. Whatever it was, I heard it,
turned about, and with one knee on the window-locker (I remember it
perfectly) took a glance out astern. I saw nothing to account for
the sound: but I knew of a dozen things which might account for it--
anything, in fact, down to some lazy cabin-boy heaving the
dinner-scraps overboard: and having, as you'll understand, a dozen
matters on my mind at the moment, I thought no more of it, but turned
to Mr. Orchard again and picked up our talk. To this day I don't
know that there was anything in the sound, but 'tis fair to tell you
all I can