Despite the crowd the captain involuntarily shrank back as the train rattled into the station. The carriage containing the travellers stopped almost in front of him, and their consternation and annoyance at the extent of their reception were plainly visible. Bronzed and healthy-looking, they stepped out on to the platform, and after a brief greeting to Mrs. Chalk and Mrs. Stobell led the way in some haste to the exit. The crowd pressed close behind, and inquiries as to the treasure and its approximate value broke clamorously upon the ears of the maddened Mr. Stobell. Friends of many years who sought for particulars were shouldered aside, and it was left to Mr. Chalk, who struggled along in the rear with his wife, to announce that they had been shipwrecked.
Captain Bowers, who had just caught the word, heard the full particulars from him next day. For once the positions were reversed, and Mr. Chalk, who had so often sat in that room listening to the captain's yarns, swelled with pride as he noted the rapt fashion in which the captain listened to his. The tale of the shipwreck he regarded as a disagreeable necessity: a piece of paste flaunting itself among gems. In a few words he told how the Fair Emily crashed on to a reef in the middle of the night, and how, owing to the darkness and confusion, the boat into which he had got with Stobell and Tredgold was cast adrift; how a voice raised to a shriek cried to them to pull away, and how a minute afterwards the schooner disappeared with all hands.
"It almost unnerved me," he said, turning to Miss Drewitt, who was listening intently.
"You are sure she went down, I suppose?" said the captain; "she didn't just disappear in the darkness?"
"Sank like a stone," said Mr. Chalk, decidedly. "Our boat was nearly swamped in the vortex. Fortunately, the sea was calm, and when day broke we saw a small island about three miles away on our weather-beam."
"Where?" inquired Edward Tredgold, who had just looked in on the way to the office. Mr. Chalk explained.
"You tell the story much better than my father does," said Edward, nodding. "From the way he tells it one might think that you had the island in the boat with you."
Mr. Chalk started nervously. "It was three miles away on our weather-beam," he repeated, "the atmosphere clear and the sea calm. We sat down to a steady pull, and made the land in a little under the hour."
"Who did the pulling?" inquired Edward, casually.