get the mainsail off of
her. After that, the mizzen-topgallant."

"Yes, sir," said the second.

"Who was it?" the mate asked, as Mr. Mellaire was turning away.

"Boney--he was no good, anyway," came the answer.

That was all. Boney the Splinter was gone, and all hands were answering
the command of Mr. Mellaire to take in the mainsail. But they never took
it in; for at that moment it started to blow away out of the bolt-ropes,
and in but few moments all that was left of it was a few short, slatting
ribbons.

"Mizzen-topgallant-sail!" Mr. Pike ordered. Then, and for the first
time, he recognized my existence.

"Well rid of it," he growled. "It never did set properly. I was always
aching to get my hands on the sail-maker that made it."

On my way below a glance into the chart-room gave me the cue to the
Samurai's blunder--if blunder it can be called, for no one will ever
know. He lay on the floor in a loose heap, rolling willy-nilly with
every roll of the _Elsinore_.

CHAPTER XXXIX

There is so much to write about all at once. In the first place, Captain
West. Not entirely unexpected was his death. Margaret tells me that she
was apprehensive from the start of the voyage--and even before. It was
because of her apprehension that she so abruptly changed her plans and
accompanied her father.

What really happened we do not know, but the agreed surmise is that it
was some stroke of the heart. And yet, after the stroke, did he not come
out on deck? Or could the first stroke have been followed by another and
fatal one after I had helped him inside through the door? And even so, I
have never heard of a heart-stroke being preceded hours before by a
weakening of the mind. Captain West's mind seemed quite clear, and must
have been quite clear, that last afternoon when he wore the _Elsinore_
and started the lee-shore drift. In which case it was a blunder. The
Samurai blundered, and his heart destroyed him when he became aware of
the blunder.

At any rate the thought of blunder never enters Margaret's head. She
accepts, as a matter of course, that it was all a part of the oncoming
termination of his sickness. And no one will ever undeceive her. Neither
Mr. Pike, Mr. Mellaire, nor I, among ourselves, mention a whisper of what
so narrowly missed causing disaster. In fact, Mr. Pike does not talk
about the matter at all.--And then, again, might it not have been
something different from heart disea