“This your name in these master's papers?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“You're—you claim to be the Captain Mayo who smashed the Montana?”
“I'm the man, sir. I hung on to my papers, even though they have been canceled.”
“How do I know about these papers? How do I know your name is Mayo? You might have stolen 'em—though, for that matter, you might just as well carry a dynamite bomb around in your pocket, for all the good they'll do you.”
“That's the point, sir. They merely prove my identity. Nobody else would want them. Captain Downs, I'm running away from the law. I own up to you. Let me tell you how it happened.”
“Make it short,” snapped the captain, showing no great amiability toward this plucked and discredited master. “The wind is breezing up.”
He told his story concisely and in manly fashion, standing up while Captain Downs sat and stared over his spectacles, drumming his stubby fingers on the red damask.
“There, sir, that's why I am here and how I happened to get here,” Mayo concluded.
“I ain't prepared to say it isn't so,” admitted Old Mull at last, “no matter how foolish it sounds. And I'm wondering if next I'll find the King of Peruvia or the Queen of Sheba aboard this schooner. New folks are piling in fast! I know Captain Wass pretty well, though I never laid eye on you to know you. Where's that wart on his face?”