e seen no more of him!"

"Tell 'em you didn't either," said the captain.

"No, I didn't neither," said the mate.

"To make it short, gentlemen," said the captain, "Dick Dellow here went
on deck about one to cast off and go downstream in the moonlight, and
sent the boy to rouse me up; and when I come on deck Dick says: `Jem
Lynton don't show his nose yet.' I didn't say anything then, for I was
too busy thinking, being a bit sour and gruff about Jem, and with having
to get up in the middle of the night; and then I was too busy over
getting off with a bit o' sail on just for steering. Then I felt better
and ready to excuse the poor chap, for I said, half-laughing like, to
Dick Dellow here: `Jem aren't used to going out to dinners. Let him
sleep it off. He'll have a bad headache in the morning, and then I'll
bully him. He won't want to go to any more dinners just before leaving
port, setting a bad example to the men.'"

"Then, to make it shorter still," said Brace, "the second mate did not
come back?"

"Didn't I tell you he did come back, sir?" said the mate huskily.

"Yes, but--" began Brace.

"You don't mean to say--" began Sir Humphrey.

"Yes, gentlemen, that's what I do mean to say," growled the captain.
"He came aboard right enough, and went below. Nobody saw him come up
again, and there's his bed all tumbled like. But he must have come up
again and fallen overboard, for he isn't here now; and as soon as we
found it out I give the order to drop anchor, and here we are."

"But how did you happen to find it out?" said Sir Humphrey.

"Tell him, Dick," said the captain.

The first mate shrugged his shoulders, and said gloomily:

"It was like this, gen'lemen. The skipper said one thing, but I says to
myself another. `Jem Lynton's no business to go off ashore the night
we're going to sail,' I says, `and I shan't go on doing his work and
leaving him sleeping below there like a pig.' So I waited till the
skipper was busy forward talking to the look-out, and then I slips down
below to get hold of poor old Jem by the hind leg and drop him on the
floor."

"Yes?" said Brace, for the mate stopped.

"Well, sir, I goes to the side of his berth, holds out my right hand--
nay, I won't swear it was my right hand, because it might have been my
left; but whichever it was, it stood out quite stiff, and me with it,
for there was no Jem Lynton there: only the blanket pulled out like, and
half of it on the floor."