“May I ask where you last hailed from?” said Captain Stride, with some curiosity, for there was something in the appearance of this nautical stranger which interested him.
“From the southern seas. I have been away a long while in a South Sea whaler.”
“Ah, indeed?—a rough service that.”
“Rather rough; but I didn’t enter it intentionally. I was picked up at sea, with some of my mates, in an open boat, by the whaler. She was on the outward voyage, and couldn’t land us anywhere, so we were obliged to make up our minds to join as hands.”
“Strange!” murmured Captain Stride. “Then you were wrecked somewhere—or your ship foundered, mayhap—eh?”
“Yes, we were wrecked—on a coral reef.”
“Well now, young man, that is a strange coincidence. I was wrecked myself on a coral reef in the very same seas, nigh three years ago. Isn’t that odd?”
“Dear me, this is very interesting,” put in Mr Crossley; “and, as Captain Stride says, a somewhat strange coincidence.”
“Is it so very strange, after all,” returned Red Shirt, “seeing that the Pacific is full of sunken coral reefs, and vessels are wrecked there more or less every year?”
“Well, there’s some truth in that,” observed the Captain. “Did you say it was a sunk reef your ship struck on?”