"Day before yesterday morning."
"Then," cried the other excitedly, "the fire was smouldering all the time. It broke out and your men took to the water."
"Impossible," said Barnett.
"Fiddlesticks!" said the more downright surgeon.
"I hardly think Mr. Edwards would be driven overboard by a fire which did not even scorch his ship," suggested the captain mildly.
"It drove our lot overboard," insisted Slade. "Do you think we were a pack of cowards? I tell you, when that hellish thing broke loose, you had to go. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pain. It was--What's the use. You can't explain a thing like that."
"We certainly saw the glow the night Billy Edwards was--disappeared," mused Forsythe.
"And again, night before last," said the captain.
"What's that!" cried Slade. "Where is the Laughing Lass?"
"I'd give something pretty to know," said Barnett.