additional reason but the darkness
that it was a poor show, anyhow, a dashed poor show for all hands. The
irrational conviction made him falter for a second where he stood and he
gripped the slide of the companionway hard.

Shaw's voice right close to his ear relieved and cleared his troubled
thoughts.

"Oh! it's you, Mister. Come up at last," said the mate of the brig
slowly. "It appears we've got to give you a tow now. Of all the rum
incidents, this beats all. A boat sneaks up from nowhere and turns
out to be a long-expected friend! For you are one of them friends the
skipper was going to meet somewhere here. Ain't you now? Come! I know
more than you may think. Are we off to--you may just as well tell--off
to--h'm ha . . . you know?"

"Yes. I know. Don't you?" articulated Carter, innocently.

Shaw remained very quiet for a minute.

"Where's my skipper?" he asked at last.

"I left him down below in a kind of trance. Where's my boat?"

"Your boat is hanging astern. And my opinion is that you are as uncivil
as I've proved you to be untruthful. Egzz-actly."

Carter stumbled toward the taffrail and in the first step he made came
full against somebody who glided away. It seemed to him that such a
night brings men to a lower level. He thought that he might have been
knocked on the head by anybody strong enough to lift a crow-bar. He felt
strangely irritated. He said loudly, aiming his words at Shaw whom he
supposed somewhere near:

"And my opinion is that you and your skipper will come to a sudden bad
end before--"

"I thought you were in your boat. Have you changed your mind?" asked
Lingard in his deep voice close to Carter's elbow.

Carter felt his way along the rail, till his hand found a line that
seemed, in the calm, to stream out of its own accord into the darkness.
He hailed his boat, and directly heard the wash of water against her
bows as she was hauled quickly under the counter. Then he loomed up
shapeless on the rail, and the next moment disappeared as if he had
fallen out of the universe. Lingard heard him say:

"Catch hold of my leg, John." There were hollow sounds in the boat; a
voice growled, "All right."

"Keep clear of the counter," said Lingard, speaking in quiet warning
tones into the night. "The brig may get a lot of sternway on her should
this squall not strike her fairly."

"Aye, aye. I will mind," was the muttered answer from the water.

Lingard crossed over to the port side, and loo