nothing of the jar but
the handle, and the biscuits was pap, as was to be expected, but
the signs wasn't wanting of what had been taking place, don't you
see? If we'd found the boat with nothing in it we could have hoped
that it had just been washed adrift, and, though we should have
been anxious, there would have been room left for hope, which in
common sense and reason there ain't now."

"There is always room for hope until we know," objected Miles.
"Besides, Akimiski isn't the Twins by any means; why, they must be
fifty miles away, if not more."

"Nearer seventy. But who is to say that they ever got so far as
the Twins? If they'd run into any sign of walrus on Akimiski on
the way out, they would stop there for certain, a bird in hand
being worth two in a bush any day in the week, and though all is
fish that comes to our net, it is walrus we're keenest on, as
everyone knows. I've been to Mr. Selincourt with the news, and it
has about corked him up, poor gentleman! But the young lady was
worse still; she turned on me as spiteful as if I'd gone and
drowned the _Mary's_ crew myself."

There was a deeply injured note in Oily Dave's tone now. He
evidently resented keenly the fact that his bad tidings had not
received a more sympathetic hearing.

"Who was on the _Mary_?" asked Miles.

"The usual lot: Nick Jones, master, Stee Jenkin, Bobby Poole, and
Mr. Ferrars. A perfect Jonah that man is, and disaster follows
wherever he goes," said Oily Dave, with a melancholy shake of his
head.

"What do you mean?" demanded Miles, with a stare of surprise.

"What I say," retorted Oily Dave. "Mr. Selincourt sent him to me as
a lodger; the river came down in flood and tried to drown him, and
spoiled my house something fearful. Then he gets caught in a
tidehole, when out walking with his sweetheart, which Miss
Selincourt is, I suppose, though it passes me why a young lady with
dollars same as she has got don't look higher than a fisherman.
But the thing that strikes me is that the man must have done
something pretty bad, somewhere back behind, for the waters to be
following him round like this."

"Look here! don't you think it is a pretty low-down thing to be
taking a man's character away, directly there's a rumour going
round that he is dead?" asked Miles stormily.

"I ain't taking away his character. I'm only saying that if he was
fated to drown it is a great pity that he wasn't left to drown in
the first place, s