enoweth, fair, broad, and six foot two in his socks; why
should anything have happened to him?"

"But you seem to know him, and know the ship he sailed in. Tell me--
please tell me what has happened. Did you sail in the same ship?
And, if so, what has become of it?"

"I sailed," said my companion, still examining the horizon, "from
Ceylon on the 12th of July, in the ship _Mary Jane_, bound for
Liverpool. Consequently, if Ezekiel Trenoweth sailed in the _Belle
Fortune_ we couldn't very well have been in the same ship, and that's
logic," said he, turning to me for the first time with a watery and
uncertain smile, but quickly withdrawing his eyes to their old
occupation.

But he had lifted a great load from my heart, so that for very joy at
knowing my father was not among the crew of the _Mary Jane_ I could
not speak for a time, but sat watching his face, and thinking how I
should question him next.

"Sailed in the _Mary Jane_, bound for Liverpool," he repeated, his
face twitching slightly, and his hands still plucking at his
trousers, "sailed along with--never mind who. And this boy's Ezekiel
Trenoweth's son, and I knew him; knew him well." His voice was
husky, and he seemed to have something in his throat, but he went on:
"Well, it's a strange world. To think of him being dead!" looking at
the cap--which he had taken off his head.

"What! Father dead?"

"No, my lad, t'other chap: him as this cap belonged to. Ah, he was a
devil, he was. Can't fancy him dead, somehow; seemed as though the
water wasn't made as could have drowned him; always said he was born
for the gallows, and joked about it. But he's gone this time, and
I've got his cap. 'Tis a hard thought that I should outlive him;
but, curse him, I've done it, and here's his cap for proof--why, what
the devil is the lad staring at?"

During his muttered soliloquy I had turned for a moment to look
across Polkimbra Beach, when suddenly my eyes were arrested and my
heart again set violently beating by a sight that almost made me
doubt whether the events of the morning were not still part of a wild
and disordered dream. For there, at about fifty yards' distance, and
advancing along the breakers' edge, was another man, dressed like my
companion, and also watching the sea.

"What's the matter, boy? Speak, can't you?"

"It's a man."

"A man! Where?"

He made a motion forwards to look over the edge, but checked himself,
and crouched down close aga