top of the yard and knocked Tom clean off the foot-rope. Williams and I
both saw it happen."

"But there's no wind to do such a thing; you're talking nonsense!"

It seemed to me that there was as much of bewilderment as anything else
in his voice; yet I could tell that he was suspicious--though, of what,
I doubted whether he himself could have told.

He glanced at Williams, and seemed about to say something. Then, seeming
to change his mind, he turned, and sung out to one of the men who had
followed him aloft, to go down and pass out a coil of new, three-inch
manilla, and a tailblock.

"Smartly now!" he concluded.

"i, i, Sir," said the man, and went down swiftly.

The Second Mate turned to me.

"When you've got Tom below, I shall want a better explanation of all
this, than the one you've given me. It won't wash."

"Very well, Sir," I answered. "But you won't get any other."

"What do you mean?" he shouted at me. "I'll let you know I'll have no
impertinence from you or any one else."

"I don't mean any impertinence, Sir--I mean that it's the only
explanation there is to give."

"I tell you it won't wash!" he repeated. "There's something too damned
funny about it all. I shall have to report the matter to the Captain. I
can't tell him that yarn--" He broke off abruptly.

"It's not the only damned funny thing that's happened aboard this old
hooker," I answered. "You ought to know that, Sir."

"What do you mean?" he asked, quickly.

"Well, Sir," I said, "to be straight, what about that chap you sent us
hunting after up the main the other night? That was a funny enough
affair, wasn't it? This one isn't half so funny."

"That will do, Jessop!" he said, angrily. "I won't have any back talk."
Yet there was something about his tone that told me I had got one in on
my own. He seemed all at once less able to appear confident that I was
telling him a fairy tale.

After that, for perhaps half a minute, he said nothing. I guessed he was
doing some hard thinking. When he spoke again it was on the matter of
getting the Ordinary down on deck.

"One of you'll have to go down the lee side and steady him down," he
concluded.

He turned and looked downwards.

"Are you bringing that gantline?" he sang out.

"Yes, Sir," I heard one of the men answer.

A moment later, I saw the man's head appear over the top. He had the
tail-block slung round his neck, and the end of the gantline over his
shoulder.

Very soon we ha