"Mr. Sutton says he's found the chief, sir," I suggested, for I had begun to understand, a little. "He's found Chris Wickwire."
"Wickwire?" With a jerk he caught up the real marvel at last, and the crop hair seemed to stiffen all over his bullet head. "The chief!" he roared.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, sir."
"Alive?"
"Very much alive."
"Well, where is he? Why ain't he here?"
We saw the glow fade from Sutton's cheek. "I thought I explained, sir. He—he's not quite himself." Already the index of his temperament was beginning to swing from fair to foul again and his handsome face to blur with doubt. The thing that had looked so easy at the first feverish flush of relief was taking another proportion. "No, that's the devil of it," he said, gnawing the corner of his mustache. "Not by any means himself. He didn't even seem to know me."
"He might anyhow ha' wrote to tell us what happened to him that night."
The mate's dark lashes lifted a little in a superior way they had as he stuffed the book out of sight.
"He might have, only Wickwire couldn't read—you remember, sir. He'd hardly be apt to write either."