“All right, we’ll talk it over.”
As they started to go back, I called:
“One moment.”
They stopped and turned about.
“What have you done to Mr. Pike?” I asked.
Even the impassive Bert Rhine could not quite conceal his surprise.
“An’ what have you done with Mr. Mellaire!” he retorted. “You tell us, an’ we’ll tell you.”
I am confident of the genuineness of his surprise. Evidently the mutineers have been believing us guilty of the disappearance of the second mate, just as we have been believing them guilty of the disappearance of the first mate. The more I dwell upon it the more it seems the proposition of the Kilkenny cats, a case of mutual destruction on the part of the two mates.
“Another thing,” I said quickly. “Where do you get your food?”
Bert Rhine laughed one of his silent laughs; Charles Davis assumed an expression of mysteriousness and superiority; and Shorty, leaping into view from the corner of the house, danced a jig of triumph.