aft there by the boat skids, by the
break of the poop; it was a moonless night, but once or twice I saw
shadows flitting about the main deck.

I was in a quandary. Something was going on aft--but what? Newman was
missing. The bucko knew he was absent from the gang, he must have
known. Yet he ignored his absence. Was it treachery? Was Newman in
trouble? Had he and I been mistaken in our judgment of Bucko Lynch?
Oh, I was tormented with fear--and with doubt. I wanted to gallop aft
and lend him a hand, succor him, at least help him to put up a good
fight. But I wasn't sure he was in trouble, that he would welcome my
advertising his disappearance. Perhaps he was keeping a rendezvous,
with the second mate's aid.

That was what the other lads thought. Oh, aye, they missed him too.
But they didn't have wit enough to realize that Lynch also had sharp
eyes; they thought Lynch didn't know Newman was gone. They thought it
was a great joke, a score against the cabin. They thought Newman had
boldly slipped away from work to meet the lady.

"The Big Un's queenin', b'gawd, right under the Old Man's nose!"
That's how Boston put it.

I did nothing. I made no break. Luckily. At seven bells, Lynch
marshaled us aft again, to set the spanker this time. As we worked,
Newman slipped into the group as quietly and unobtrusively as he had
slipped out nearly two hours before. Coiling down gear, I discovered
that the running part of the spanker vang was off the pin, and trailing
over the side. It dropped down past the open and lighted porthole of
one of the cabin berths. Whose berth? Well, I thought that Boston had
the right of it. Newman had been "queenin'," with his feet in the
ocean, so to speak.

But he had been up to something else, as well. As he and I walked
forward, after the watch was relieved, we were overtaken by Lindquist,
who was coming from the helm.

"Vat you ban doing mit da longboat to-night?" he asked Newman,
curiously.

"Nothing, lad. You must have dreamed at your Sybeel--understand?" was
Newman's prompt reply.

It took a moment to filter into the squarehead's mind. But he got it.
"So--_ja_, it ban dream; I see noddings," he said.

"And you say nothing?"

"_Ja_, even to mineself I say noddings," promised Lindquist.

At the foc'sle door, Newman placed a detaining hand upon my shoulder
and held me back.

"Was there much comment among the hands?" he asked.

I told him what Boston had said