"We want you to explain it if you can. Slip on some things and come along." And Jim tumbled wonderingly into his jacket and trousers and followed the doctor--to the 'tween decks--to the officers' quarters.
And there lay the end of a tragedy.
Seth's pallet was empty. Seth himself--what had been Seth--lay partly on the body of Ralph Harben. His rough brown fingers still gripped Harben's throat, with a grip that had started the dead man's eyes almost out of his head and had prevented him uttering a sound.
And Seth lay in a pool of his own blood, for his vehemence had burst his hastily bandaged amputation, and he had bled to death in the act of wreaking his vengeance.
"Good God!" gasped Jim, and felt sick and ill at the sight.
"Are they dead?" he whispered, as though he feared to wake them.
"Both quite dead. Been dead several hours," said McLean, and led him back to the captain's cabin, where the steward brought them hot coffee.
"DO you know what it all means, Mr. Carron?" asked the captain.
"I'm afraid I do, captain, but I'd no idea of it, and it's a terrible shock to me." And he briefly explained as far as was necessary.
"Ay, ay," said the old man soberly; "I can see it all. He came out on purpose to find the other, to pay him out for the wrong he'd done him, and when his chance came he took it . . . I don't hold with murder myself, but . . . well, I'm bound to say I can feel for this poor lad."