e the theft,
Weatherhelm?"

"No, sir; certainly not," I answered, with as firm a voice as I could
command, though I felt conscious that it was faltering as I spoke.

"What proof have you that Weatherhelm committed the theft?" asked the
captain of the culprit.

"Because two men, if not more, watched him, and knew that it was him,"
was the answer; and now the man spoke in a firmer voice than I had done,
and I fancied looked more innocent.

"Produce your witnesses," said the captain.

The man hesitated for a minute, and his eye ranged with an uneasy glance
along the lines of men drawn up on deck, as if anxiously scanning their
countenances, for he must have felt that they knew him, and that he was
not generally believed. At last his eyes rested on two who were
standing together.

"Bill Sykes and Dick Todd saw him, sir; they know all about it. They'll
tell you; they'll prove I am innocent."

The theft had been committed on the purser's stores. Some tobacco and
sugar and some other things had been stolen. Now Saull Ley, the
accused, had been seen coming out of the store-room on one occasion when
the purser's clerk had left the keys in the door for a short time and
gone away. The purser, on his return, had missed some tobacco and
sugar, and that same evening a small quantity of both those articles had
been found in Ley's possession.

"Stand out, Bill Sykes and Dick Todd, and let me hear what you know
about this matter."

Bill Sykes was a landsman, and had soon shown that he was totally unfit
for a sailor. Dick Todd had entered as a boy. He was not worth much,
and had become a great chum of Sykes'. Still, from the little I had
seen of them, I did not think that they would have been guilty of
falsely accusing a shipmate. I had therefore little fear of what they
could say against me.

I was, however, somewhat startled when they stepped forward, and Sykes,
as the eldest, began in a clear way to state that he had seen a man,
whom he took to be me, open the door of the purser's room with a key,
and, after being absent for a minute or more, return and lock it. He at
once knew this was wrong, so he watched what the man he took to be the
thief would next do. He said that he met with Todd, and told him as a
friend what he had observed. The thief crept along the deck, and the
two then saw him go to his bag and deposit something which he took out
of his pockets. Both the men acknowledged that they might be mista