s after the _Rosana_ foundered. This is a thing which I may
remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular
demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in
gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain of the _Rosana_, and he
liked to have things nice. Now, why should this boat have been found
half-burnt on the coast, but with a piece of her name in gold leaf still
partially visible?'

'The boat probably drifted ashore,' said Peter, as if he were answering a
question in a history class.

Dunbar hardly seemed to hear him, and went on with hardly a moment's
interruption. 'I am a student,' he said, 'of the deductive method of
reasoning, and I begin with the _a priori_ assumption that E. W. Smith
could not die. I should hold the same belief even if I believed in
Purgatory.' (Dunbar pronounced the word with an incalculable number of
r's in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of musketry.)
'Presuming,' he went on, 'that the _Rosana_ foundered, was E. W. Smith
the man to go down in her, or was he not?'

'I suppose some of them took to the boat,' said Toffy. 'In an affair of
that sort it is a case of _sauve qui peut_.'

'The whole crew would have swamped the boat,' said Dunbar, who liked
giving small pieces of information at a time.

'Consequently----' said Peter.

'Consequently,' said Dunbar, 'I 'm just biding my time, and I 'll tell
you more when there 's more to tell.'

'It's a queer story!' said Peter.

'It's queerer than you think!' said Dunbar.

'You can't believe,' said the other, 'that this man Smith went off in the
boat by himself?'

'I don't,' said Dunbar, 'for E. W. Smith couldn't row, and with all his
sea-going he was a landsman to his finger-tips.'

'So then,' said Peter, 'he must have had accomplices, and accomplices
always tell tales.'

'There 's one very certain way of silencing men,' said the Scot.

Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his cigar end out over the
water. 'It's a beastly suggestion,' he said briefly. His face was
white, and he found himself hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar's
would not bring back to him those horrible nights he had had at the
beginning of the voyage.

'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was
about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of
Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.'

The story seemed finished, and Toffy got