"Yes. From what I hear. He was the blackbearded man who drugged you and shanghaied you in the white knockabout. Only Tip doesn't usually wear a beard. He has grown it in the last three or four weeks, in order to hide himself from people who know him well. Then he came down here to Blair's Cove and rented a house so he could watch things. He had a tip that the instruction cruise would center around this little bay."
"So, acting for Tip Gaynor, you undertook to ruin us all, and the good name of our boats?" asked Jack. "And you even met Dave Pollard, and got him to take you on as a machinist for our boats?"
"Yes; Tip knew a man who was willing to introduce me to Pollard."
"It was just like simple, unsuspicious, bighearted Dave Pollard to be taken in by a rascal like that," muttered Jack, to himself. "But, oh, will Pollard ever forgive himself when he hears all this?"
Sam Truax added a few more details to his confession, but they were unimportant.
"I couldn't die without telling you all this, Benson," he added. "I hope you forgive me."
Ere Jack could reply Lieutenant Commander Mayhew stepped forward.
"Truax, I wish to ask you if every word you have uttered is the solemn truth?"
"It is; yes," admitted the sick man.
"Why have you made this confession?"