"I'd sooner have lost anyone aboard rather than Dumont—except the Missus," he said softly. "And to think they must have got him just after he got Dennis."
"Aye," said Bo's'n Joe.
It was very evident how Frenchy had come by his fate. Transfixing his body, fastened so firmly within him that no easy pull would remove it, was a long-bladed knife with shark-skin handle—palpably a Japanese knife.
"Well," the Skipper turned away, "see that he's sewed up proper, Mr. Leman, and we'll bury him shipshape. Attend to repairing that dress, too."
When the skipper had disappeared aft, Bo's'n Joe looked at Mr. Leman.
"What's the Skipper got on his mind? He ain't goin' to stand by and see Frenchy killed without doin' anything?"
Mr. Leman reflectively tugged his whiskers, and squinted down his broken nose.
"Not him, Bo's'n—not him! 'Ready to work to-morrow', says he. Just wait till to-night, Bo's'n! If something don't happen to them Japs, I miss my guess. Leave it to him and the Missus! If this blasted fog don't break, he'll show 'em a thing or two."
The Pelican swung idly to her anchors all that afternoon.
It was easy for those aboard her to deduce exactly how Dumont had come to his end. The knife told the whole story. The flurry at the end of the lines, Dumont's frantic signal to be hoisted, all explained perfectly that he had encountered a diver from the enemy ship. The Japs had diving apparatus, of course.