The old commodore appeared to be screwing up and gathering all his energies about him.
"Never saw him!—what—did he fall overboard? Tell me—tell me—did he fall overboard?"
"None of us saw him fall overboard, sir;" said I, desirous of making a diversion in favour of my friends, "but after that moment I never saw him alive."
"Alive!" echoed the commodore—"Alive! Did you see him dead, then?"
"No, sir, I think with you he must have gone overboard." There was a long and most irksome pause; at length the commodore broke it.
"Well, well, Benjamin, it cannot be helped, it cannot be helped."
Desirous of preventing another lull in the conversation, I hinted to the commodore that I had been subjected to a very strange delusion of the senses in passing the bar.
"Ay, indeed," said he, with a faint smile—"second sight, I presume—your Scotch star has been in the ascendant—but come, tell the whole story at once."
"I have told it before to Mr Sprawl, Sir Oliver; but really, on reflection, I have some scruples about recapitulating such nonsense at length again."
"Tell it," said Sir Oliver, looking at me with his lack-lustre eye—"tell it."