"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would have done."
"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the Russians?" asked Hastings.
"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the South, and if the authorities couldn't have connected him with any illegal sealing they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to Japan by and bye. In that case, he'd have got home without any trouble."
He paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a little deprecatory gesture.
"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do."
It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question.
"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those three men when you sailed the second time?"
"No," said the bronzed sailorman, with an impressive quietness, "I hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to make quite certain." He spread a hard hand out forcibly. "He felt he had to."
He gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes.
"Yes," she said, "and when you have said that, as you have done, you could have said very little more of any man."