“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.”