She hesitated, and Jack asked:
"Well, what? Go on!"
"No, I want to think about it first," she made reply. "Wait until we girls hear his story."
"Will you come to our motor boat?" asked Jack of the sailor, who said he was known by the name of Slim Jim, which indeed, as far as his physical characteristics were concerned, fitted him perfectly. He was indeed slim, though of rather a pleasant cast of features.
"Sure, boss, I'll go," he answered. "Of course I might git a job by hangin' around here, but—"
"Oh, we'll pay you for your time—you won't lose anything." Jack interrupted. Indeed the man had, from the first, it seemed, accosted him with the idea of getting a little "spare-change" for, like most of the negro population of the Antilles, he was very poor.
"But what's it all about?" asked Bess, who had not heard all the talk, and who, in consequence, had not followed the significance of the encounter.
"Zey have found a man, who says a sailor on some island near here, wore a cap with ze name of your mozer's steamer," put in Inez, who, with the quickness of her race, had gathered those important facts.
"Oh!" gasped Bess.
"Don't build too much on it," interposed Jack.