Next day I went down to Fresh Wharf and found the Thrush, with cranes creaking over her, looking more grimy and forbidding than ever. As I went on board the men one and all saluted me, and when I knocked at the door of the captain’s cabin there came a low gruff growl —
“Well, what is it now?”
I announced who I was, and was of course at once admitted. Job Seal, in shirt and trousers, had been lying in his bunk smoking, taking his ease after a full night ashore in company with his “chief.” He had been reading the paper, and a big glass of brandy and soda at his elbow told its own tale.
“Come in, come in, doctor,” he cried cheerily, holding out his enormous hand; “I intended to come over and see you to-night. Well, what’s the latest news of Old Mystery?”
“As I told you, he’s in the hands of the first specialist in lunacy in London, and under treatment at a private asylum.”
“Will he get better?”
“Nobody can tell that. The doctor, however, anticipates that he will.”
“Well, I hope by the time I get back from this next trip he’ll have told you his story. We sail to-morrow on our usual round—Cardiff, Leghorn, Naples, Valencia, and home. But I don’t suppose we’ll be picking up any Noah’s Arks this trip—eh?”
“No,” I laughed. “I see that a paragraph has crept into the papers about our discovery, and it is discredited. One paper heads it ‘A Seaman’s Yarn.’ I suppose some of the men have been talking about it on shore.”
“Suppose so. One o’ them chaps from the newspapers came aboard yesterday and began asking all about it, but I blessed him for his inquisitiveness, and sent him about his business. What the dickens has it to do with him?”