“So I thought, sir,” said Joe, “but the mate saw me on deck and made me go below. Two minutes afterwards I heard a splash, and the skipper was overboard.”
There was a meaning in his words that there was no mistaking. The old man, looking round at the faces, saw that the mate’s was very pale.
“What did he make you go below for?” he asked, turning to Joe.
“Better ask him, sir,” replied the seaman. “I wanted to stay up on deck, but I ’ad to obey orders. If I ’ad stayed on deck, he wouldn’t have been cap’n.”
Captain Barber turned and regarded the mate fixedly; the mate, after a vain attempt to meet his gaze, lowered his eyes to the deck.
“What do you say to all this?” enquired Barber, slowly.
“Nothing,” replied the mate. “I did send Joe below and the skipper fell overboard a minute or two afterwards. It’s quite true.”
“Fell?” enquired Captain Barber.
“Fell,” repeated the other, and looked him squarely in the eyes.
For some time Captain Barber said nothing, and the men, finding the silence irksome, shuffled uneasily.