"Not quite."
"Great Heaven! Who?"
"One clerk at the shipping agent's scented something queer, I think. James Seaton. That was the name he went by."
"Could he prove anything?"
"Nothing. He knew nothing for certain; and what he guessed won't never be known in England now." And Wylie fidgeted in his chair.
Notwithstanding this assurance Wardlaw looked grave, and took a note of that clerk's name. Then he begged Wylie to go on. "Give me all the details," said he. "Leave me to judge their relative value. You scuttled the ship?"
"Don't say that! don't say that!" cried Wylie, in a low but eager voice. "Stone walls have ears." Then rather more loudly than was necessary, "Ship sprung a leak that neither the captain, nor I, nor anybody could find, to stop. Me and my men, we all think her seams opened, with stress of weather." Then, lowering his voice again, "Try and see it as we do; and don't you ever use such a word as that what come out of your lips just now. We pumped her hard; but 'twarn't no use. She filled, and we had to take to the boats."
"Stop a moment. Was there any suspicion excited?"
"Not among the crew. And suppose there was, I could talk 'em all over, or buy 'em all over, what few of 'em is left. I've got 'em all with me in one house, and they are all square, don't you fear."
"Well, but you said 'among the crew!' Whom else can we have to fear?"