Mr. Duckett, distrustful of these compliments, cast an agonized glance at the door.
"Stobell was a bit rough just now," said Tredgold, with another warning glance at Brisket, "but he didn't like being shipwrecked."
Brisket gazed at the door in his turn. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was being played with.
"It's nothing much to like," he said, at last, but—"
"Tell us how you escaped," said Tredgold; "or, perhaps," he continued, hastily, as Brisket was about to speak—"perhaps you would like first to hear how we did."
"Perhaps that would be better," said the perplexed Brisket.
He nudged the mate with his elbow, and Mr. Tredgold, still keeping him under the spell of his eye, began with great rapidity to narrate the circumstances attending the loss of the Fair Emily. After one irrepressible grunt of surprise Captain Brisket listened without moving a muscle, but the changes on Mr. Duckett's face were so extraordinary that on several occasions the narrator faltered and lost the thread of his discourse. At such times Mr. Chalk took up the story, and once, when both seemed at a loss, a growling contribution came from Mr. Stobell.
"Of course, you got away in the other boat," said Tredgold, nervously, when he had finished.
Brisket looked round shrewdly, his wits hard at work. Already the advantages of adopting a story which he supposed to have been concocted for the benefit of Captain Bowers were beginning to multiply in his ready brain.
"And didn't see us owing to the darkness," prompted Tredgold, with a glance at Mr. Joseph Tasker, who was lingering by the door after bringing in some whisky.