"Afraid to touch him—why, what's the matter?"
"'E's dead, sir."
A feeling as if ice water had been dashed over his body shivered through Leonard. The black cabin seemed to swing under his feet. His arms dropped down and he stood perfectly still staring into the blackness from whence came the sailor's voice.
"You—you don't mean he's dead?" he asked in a shocking whisper.
"That I do, sir, dead as a lump o' seaweed."
Madden turned and walked with a queer light feeling toward the galley. He was in no hurry now. If that strange light sank them, drowned them, it made little difference. An idea came into his mind.
"Did—did you fellows kill him—murder, him?" he asked in a hard undertone.
The tenseness of his voice seemed to scare the sailor, "No, sir, no, sir, no, sir!" repeated the cockney over and over.
"For I'll shoot the man down like a dog! I'll hang him! I'll—I'll——"
"We—we didn't touch 'im!" cried the sailor in hoarse alarm. "'E done it 'isself, sir. Went clean crazy, kilt hisself—'orrible!" As the sailor gasped out "horrible" they entered the cook's galley where a dim light burned and a group of silent, sobering men stood in a knot over some object.