“And you know,” he went on, groping shamefacedly amongst his feelings, “I did not engage that young fellow. His people had some interest with my owners. I was in a way forced to take him on. He looked very smart, very gentlemanly, and all that. But do you know—I never liked him, somehow. I am a plain man. You see, he wasn’t exactly the sort for the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora.”
I had become so connected in thoughts and impressions with the secret sharer of my cabin that I felt as if I, personally, were being given to understand that I, too, was not the sort that would have done for the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no doubt of it in my mind.
“Not at all the style of man. You understand,” he insisted, superfluously, looking hard at me.
I smiled urbanely. He seemed at a loss for a while.
“I suppose I must report a suicide.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Suicide! That’s what I’ll have to write to my owners directly I get in.”
“Unless you manage to recover him before to-morrow,” I assented, dispassionately. . . “I mean, alive.”
He mumbled something which I really did not catch, and I turned my ear to him in a puzzled manner. He fairly bawled:
“The land—I say, the mainland is at least seven miles off my anchorage.”