We went aft and below and sat down at the table as we had been. McCord broke a prolonged silence.
“I’m sort of glad he got away—poor cuss! He’s probably climbing up a wharf this minute, shivering and scared to death. Over toward the gas-tanks, by the way he was swimming. By gracious! now that the world’s turned over straight again, I feel I could sleep a solid week. Poor cuss! can you imagine him, Ridgeway—”
“Yes,” I broke in. “I think I can. He must have lost his nerve when he made out your smoke and shinnied up there to stow away, taking the ship’s papers with him He would have attached some profound importance to them—remember, the ‘barbarian,’ eight thousand miles from home. Probably couldn’t read a word. I suppose the cat followed him—the traditional source of food He must have wanted water badly.”
“I should say! He wouldn’t have taken the chances he did.”
“Well,” I announced, “at any rate, I can say it now—there’s another ‘mystery of the sea’ gone to pot.”
McCord lifted his heavy lids.
“No,” he mumbled. “The mystery is that a man who has been to sea all his life could sail around for three days with a man bundled up in his top and not know it. When I think of him peeking down at me—and playing off that damn cat—probably without realizing it—scared to death—by gracious! Ridgeway, there was a pair of funks aboard this craft, eh? Wow—yow—I could sleep—”
“I should think you could.”
McCord did not answer.
“By the way,” I speculated. “I guess you were right about Björnsen, McCord—that is, his fooling with the foretop. He must have been caught all of a bunch, eh?”