resent time he was fooling about helping the
ship's cat to wash itself.

"What do you know about it?" repeated Fraser.

"Will-yum told me, sir," said Joe, hastily.

Mr. Green being summoned, hastily put down the cat and came aft, while
Joe, with a full confidence in his friend's powers, edged a few feet
away, and listened expectantly as the skipper interrogated him.

"Yes, sir, I did tell Joe, sir," he answered, with a reproachful glance
at that amateur. "I met Cap'in Flower that evening again, late, an' he
told me himself. I'm sorry to see by this morning's paper that his ship
is overdue."

"That'll do," said Fraser, turning away.

The men moved off slowly, Mr. Green's reproaches being forestalled by
the evidently genuine compliments of Joe.

"If I'd got a 'ead like you, Will-yum," he said, enviously, "I'd be a
loryer or a serlicitor, or some-think o' the kind."

Days passed and ran into weeks, but the _Golden Cloud_ was still
unspoken. Fraser got a paper every day when ashore, but in vain, until
at length one morning, at Bittlesea, in the news columns of the _Daily
Telegraph_, the name of the missing ship caught his eye. He folded the
paper hurriedly, and breathed hard as he read:--

"Missing ship, _Golden Cloud_.

"Rio Janeiro, Thursday.

"The barque _Foxglove_, from Melbourne to Rio Janeiro, has just arrived
with five men, sole survivors of the ship _Golden Cloud_, which they
report as sunk in collision with a steamer, name unknown, ten weeks out
from London. Their names are Smith, Larsen, Petersen, Collins and Gooch.
No others saved."

In a dazed fashion he read the paragraph over and over again, closely
scanning the names of the rescued men. Then he went up on deck,
and beckoning to Joe, pointed with a trembling finger to the fatal
paragraph. Joe read it slowly.

"And Cap'in Flower wasn't one o' them, sir?" he asked, pointing to the
names.

Fraser shook his head, and both men stood for some time in silence.

"He's done it this time, and no mistake," said Joe, at last. "Well, 'e
was a good sailorman and a kind master."

He handed the paper back, and returned to his work and to confer in a
low voice with Green, who had been watching them. Fraser went back to
the cabin, and after sitting for some time in a brown study, wrote off
to Poppy Tyrell and enclosed the cutting.

He saw her three days later, and was dismayed and surprised to find her
taxing herself with being the cause of the adventurous