is faith to, and uses
indiscriminately to hold his trousers or his knife.

I ordered a rigid search of the deck, but the axe was gone. Nor was it
ever found. It had taken its bloody story many fathoms deep into the
old Atlantic, and hidden it, where many crimes have been hidden, in the
ooze and slime of the sea-bottom.

That day was memorable for more than the attack on Burns. It marked a
complete revolution in my idea of the earlier crimes, and of the
criminal.

Two things influenced my change of mental attitude. The attack on
Burns was one. I did not believe that Turner had strength enough to
fell so vigorous a man, even with the capstan bar which we found lying
near by. Nor could he have jerked and broken the amberline. Mrs. Johns
I eliminated for the same reason, of course. I could imagine her
getting the key by subtlety, wheedling the impressionable young sailor
into compliance. But force!

The second reason was the stronger.

Singleton, the mate, had become a tractable and almost amiable
prisoner. Like Turner, he was ugly only when he was drinking, and
there was not even enough liquor on the Ella to revive poor Burns. He
spent his days devising, with bits of wire, a ring puzzle that he
intended should make his fortune. And I believe he contrived, finally,
a clever enough bit of foolery. He was anxious to talk, and complained
bitterly of loneliness, using every excuse to hold Tom, the cook, when
he carried him his meals. He had asked for a Bible, too, and read it
now and then.

The morning of Bums's injury, I visited Singleton.

The new outrage, coming at a time when they were slowly recovering
confidence, had turned the men surly. The loss of the axe, the handle
of which I had told them would, under skillful eyes, reveal the
murderer as accurately as a photograph, was a serious blow. Again arose
the specter of the innocent suffering for the guilty. They went
doggedly about their work, and wherever they gathered there was
muttered talk of the white figure. There was grumbling, too, over
their lack of weapons for defense.

The cook was a ringleader of the malcontents. Certain utensils were
allowed him; but he was compelled at night to lock them in the galley,
after either Burns's inspection or mine, and to turn over the key to
one of us.

On the morning after the attack, therefore, Tom, carrying Singleton's
breakfast to him, told him at length what had occurred in the night,
and dilated o