"Attempted blackmail, eh?" asked the Moorish warrior, who had opened his eyes wide and was fiddling with the scimitar.
"No! No! I tell you it was a mistake, and I can prove it. I mean, it may look like the man I saw isn't on board at all, hut he is! He's got to be. He must have been disguised im something… "
A dim suspicion that at last the Parcae had got tired of (angling things up for their particular crowd, and had begun on somebody else, began to grow hopefully in Morgan's mind.
"Let's hear your side of the story," he said, playing a chance. "Then we'll decide. What do you have to say about it?"
Woodcock came up to the deck. A scowl, of which neither of them probably knew the reason, had overspread the rather grim faces of large Valvick and even larger Bermondsey. Woodcock saw it, and veered like a sloop in ii windward breeze.
Clearing his throat, he set himself amiably for a hypnotic speech.
"So listen, old man. I did see that guy; word of honour. Hut after I talked to you to-day I said to myself, I said, 'Charley, that fellow Warren's a real white man, and he's promised to get the testimonial for you. And you're a man of your word, Charley,' I said," lowering his voice, 'so you'll get the name of the man for him'…"
"You mean you didn't know who the man was?"
"Didn't I tell you I didn't know his name?" demanded Woodcock urgently. "Think what I said! Remember what I said! And what I said was, I'd know him if I saw him again. And, damn it! he had to be on the boat, didn't he? So I thought I'd look around and find out who it was. Well, all the possible people were at meals to-day, and I looked, and he wasn't there! So I thought, 'What the hell?' and I began to get scared," he swallowed hard; "so I went to the purser, and described the man as somebody I wanted to meet. I couldn't miss him; I remembered everything, including a funny-looking ear and a strawberry mark on the fellow's cheek. And the purser said, 'Charley,' he said, 'there's nobody like that aboard.' And then I thought, 'Disguise!' But yet it couldn't have been anybody I'd already seen, because I'd have known 'em disguise or no disguise — shape of the face, no whiskers, all that." He was growing unintelligible, but he rushed on. "And then I heard you'd been put in the brig because the captain had accused you of making a false accusation about somebody; and I thought, 'O God, Charley, this is all your fault and he won't believe you really did see that.' When I got your note to come down, I thought you mightn't blame me after all; but as soon as you hit me — Listen, I'll make it up to you. I'm no crook, I swear… "
Good old Parcae! Morgan felt a rush of gratitude even for this small favour of averting charges of assault and battery, or whatever else might have occurred to Mr. Woodcock in a more rational moment.