t with his
flat face and the round holes of his nostrils he presented an
appearance which, under other circumstances, would have been at once
ludicrous and grotesque.

"By the blood!" cried he, "to be sure it is murder that has happened
here."

"Not murder!" cried Jonathan, in a shrill and panting voice. "Not
murder! It was all an accident, and I am as innocent as a baby."

The newcomer looked at him and then at the two figures upon the
floor, and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and
cunning. Then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be called
of drollery. "Accident!" quoth he. "By the blood! d'ye see 'tis a
strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the
third go without a scratch!" Delivering himself thus, he came forward
into the room, and, taking the last victim of Jonathan's adventure by
the arm, with as little compunction as he would have handled a sack of
grain he dragged the limp and helpless figure from where it lay to the
floor beside the first victim. Then, lifting the lighted candle, he
bent over the two prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to
the lineaments first of one and then of the other. He looked at them
very carefully for a long while, with the closest and most intent
scrutiny, and in perfect silence. "They are both as dead," says he,
"as Davy Jones, and, whoever you be, I protest that you have done your
business the most completest that I ever saw in all of my life."

"Indeed," cried Jonathan, in the same shrill and panting voice, "it
was themselves who did it. First one of them attacked me and then the
other, and I did but try to keep them from murdering me. This one fell
on his knife, and that one shot himself in his efforts to destroy me."

"That," says the seaman, "you may very well tell to a dry-lander, and
maybe he will believe you; but you cannot so easily pull the wool over
the eyes of Captain Benny Willitts. And what, if I may be so bold as
for to ask you, was the reason for their attacking so harmless a man
as you proclaim yourself to be?"

[Illustration: The Burning Ship

_Originally published in_
COLLIER'S WEEKLY, _1898_]

"That I know not," cried Jonathan; "but I am entirely willing to tell
thee all the circumstances. Thou must know that I am a member of the
Society of Friends. This day I landed here in Kingston, and met a
young woman of very comely appearance, who intrusted me with this
little ivory ball, which she