eet. McWhirter touched me on the arm.

"Wake up!" he said. "We have work to do, my friend."

We went upstairs together, cautiously, not to rouse the house. At the
top, Mac turned and patted me on the elbow, my shoulder being a foot or
so above him.

"Good boy!" he said. "And if that shirtfront and tie didn't knock into
eternal oblivion the deck-washing on the Ella, I'll eat them!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE THING

I deserve no credit for the solution of the Ella's mystery. I have a
certain quality of force, perhaps, and I am not lacking in physical
courage; but I have no finesse of intellect. McWhirter, a foot shorter
than I, round of face, jovial and stocky, has as much subtlety in his
little finger as I have in my six feet and a fraction of body.

All the way to the river, therefore, he was poring over the drawing. He
named the paper at once.

"Ought to know it," he said, in reply to my surprise. "Sold enough
paper at the drugstore to qualify as a stationery engineer." He
writhed as was his habit over his jokes, and then fell to work at the
drawing again. "A book," he said, "and an axe, and a gibbet or
gallows. B-a-g--that makes 'bag.' Doesn't go far, does it? Humorous
duck, isn't he? Any one who can write 'ha! ha!' under a gallows has
real humor. G-a-b, b-a-g!"

The Ella still lay in the Delaware, half a mile or so from her original
moorings. She carried the usual riding-lights--a white one in the bow,
another at the stern, and the two vertical red lights which showed her
not under command. In reply to repeated signals, we were unable to
rouse the watchman. I had brought an electric flash with me, and by
its aid we found a rope ladder over the side, with a small boat at its
foot.

Although the boat indicated the presence of the watchman on board, we
made our way to the deck without challenge. Here McWhirter suggested
that the situation might be disagreeable, were the man to waken and get
at us with a gun.

We stood by the top of the ladder, therefore, and made another effort
to rouse him. "Hey, watchman!" I called. And McWhirter, in a deep
bass, sang lustily: "Watchman, what of the night?" Neither of us made,
any perceptible impression on the silence and gloom of the Ella.

McWhirter grew less gay. The deserted decks of the ship, her tragic
history, her isolation, the darkness, which my small flash seemed only
to intensify, all had their effect on him.

"It's got my goat," he admi