They still hovered about him until the Adelaide's skipper drew him into his room, and gravely shook hands with him.
"It's not often boys of their kind make a fuss over any one, but in this case the thing's quite natural," he said. "I want to say first of all that we're much obliged."
Then he emptied the contents of a locker on the table, and they included a cigar-case and a couple of glasses, which he filled. "Well, in one way, you made a hard bargain with us, but I'm not going to complain of that. It was made, and, though I felt tolerably sure we were both going up on the head yonder, you carried it out. We owe you a little for hanging on to us."
Jimmy, who sat down and took a cigar, regarded him thoughtfully. The man was, he fancied, opinionated and somewhat assertive; but there was something in his manner which suggested that he was honest, and therefore likely to resent having been unwittingly made Merril's accomplice. Jimmy was far from being a genius, but like a good many other quiet men whose conversation contains no hint of brilliancy, he was at least as far from being a fool.
"How did you come to be where you were when we fell in with you?" he asked.
"That is very much the same thing as I meant to ask you."
"Well," said Jimmy dryly, "I can account for it; but I'll hear what happened to you first."
His companion told him, and Jimmy, who watched him closely, made up his mind as to the course he should adopt. "Has it struck you that your engines couldn't well have given out at a more inconvenient time?" he asked.
"It naturally has;" and the skipper's disgust and bitterness against his engineer were stronger than his prudence. "Still, what could you expect with a whisky-tank of the kind I've got in charge below? The thing has happened before."
"When there was a reef or a shoal close to lee?"