“You'll see,” said Jim. “Next time I go myself. I'll take Mamie for the trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a schooner. You wait till I get the searching of her.”
“But you can't search her!” cried I. “She's burned.”
“Burned!” cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her hands folded in her lap.
There was an appreciable pause.
“I beg your pardon, Loudon,” began Jim at last, “but why in snakes did you burn her?”
“It was an idea of Nares's,” said I.
“This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all,” observed Mamie.
“I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected,” added Jim. “It seems kind of crazy even. What did you—what did Nares expect to gain by burning her?”
“I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was to get,” said I.
“That's the very point,” cried Jim. “It was quite plain you hadn't.”