'What was her name?'
'The Airdale,' he replied glibly. 'Belonga to Liverpool—fine biga ship. We bound to Pam in New Caledonia to load chroma ore, and run ashore on dark night. Ship break up very quick'—and then he spun off the rest of his yarn, and a very plausible one it was, too. The ship, he said, was not injured much at first, and on the following morning the captain, with the second mate and four hands, had left in one of the boats for Pam to get assistance. The first mate, bos'un and three hands were drowned. After waiting for ten days on the wreck the rest of the crew took to the long boat, for bad weather came on, and the ship began to pound on the reef.
'But what are you doing here so far to the northward?' asked Hannah, in his slow, drawling tones. 'Why didn't you steer for New Caledonia? You were only two days' sail to there from Astrolabe Reefs. Now you are three hundred miles to the north.'
The man was a marvellous liar. Yes, he said, that was true, but 'Goda help him,' he would 'speaka true.' He and the nine men with him did not want to go to New Caledonia, and did not want to have anything more to do with the captain, who was a very 'harda' man, and so they had stood to the northward, meaning to land on one of the New Hebrides.
'What was the captain's name?'
'Smeeth—Captain Johna Smeeth. Belonga to Liverpool.'
'Are you one of the ship's officers?'
'I am carpenter,' he answered promptly. 'I all the time sail in Englisha ship.'
'Just so; are you a Frenchman?' asked Hannah, casually.
'No; I come from Barcelon'.'