Bill's testimony was direct and short. He did not change it, nor attempt to qualify it. The sheath knife was his, he admitted, and it had not been touched by him. On the yard he had seen me go forward and into the companion; he had seen the girl follow, peer in at me, and go to the lee steps; and he had seen Tom leave the wheel when the girl had entered the alley, hurry along the lee alley, pick up the knife, reach into the window, and leave it there. He had heard the two screams, had seen me emerge and bend over the girl after she had fallen down the steps, had seen the captain arrive, and when four bells had struck he had answered and come down; for his punishment had ended.
Tom had more to say. First, he had seen Bill drop from the bight of a lee cro'-jack buntline to the house just where the knife was placed. He had seen him pick up the knife, jump to the alley, and after the mate had screamed spring back to the house and disappear behind the cro'-jack as he climbed the buntline. He had watched him farther aloft as he appeared on the cro'-jack yard, and had seen him go up the lee topmast rigging to the upper yard from which, when he had struck four bells, he had answered.
"You inhuman pair of scoundrels!" spluttered Captain Merwin indignantly. "No matter which is guilty—for a twin brother to swear away the life of the other! It is incredible, unheard of! Why didn't you speak at once—either of you—both of you?"
To this they each coolly announced a satisfaction with the death of the mate and a disinterestedness in the fate of the other as to minimize their responsibility.
I now further clouded the case by my own speculations; that Tom could not have left the wheel without the ship's broaching to, and that Bill had not the time in which to descend and return, even had he been able to choose the exact moment. But to this Tom gave immediate answer.
"Can you remember the time it took, sir," he asked me, "from your lookin' at him aloft to your hearin' him sing out at four bells?"
"About four minutes," I said, after a moment's thought.
"Now, I'll prove it, sir, that it was plenty of time. I s'pose the lee buntlines haven't been touched since then, have they?"
The boatswains testified that they had not, and Tom requested that his irons be removed for his demonstration. He was freed, and stepped toward the weather alley. "Now, I'll go aloft, Mr. Rogers," he said, "to the same place on the yard as he was, and you take the same place on the quarter where you was when you seed him up there. Then you start forward, just as you did, and I'll do just what he did."
The captain nodded assent to this, and I went aft to the log while Tom danced aloft to the lee topsail yard. "All ready, sir!" he called. "Start now!"