n the momentary silence that succeeded, I caught the voice of Stubbins.

"There hain't hardly no wind," he was saying, in a puzzled tone.

There was a low murmur of assent from the surrounding men.

The Second Mate said nothing, and I glanced at him, curiously. Was he
beginning to see, I wondered, how useless it was to try to find any
sensible explanation of the affair? Had he begun at last to couple it
with that peculiar business of the man up the main? I am inclined _now_
to think that this was so; for, after staring a few moments at Tom, in a
doubtful sort of way, he went out of the fo'cas'le, saying that he would
inquire further into the matter in the morning. Yet, when the morning
came, he did no such thing. As for his reporting the affair to the
Skipper, I much doubt it. Even did he, it must have been in a very
casual way; for we heard nothing more about it; though, of course, we
talked it over pretty thoroughly among ourselves.

With regard to the Second Mate, even now I am rather puzzled by his
attitude to us aloft. Sometimes I have thought that he must have
suspected us of trying to play off some trick on him--perhaps, at the
time, he still half suspected one of us of being in some way connected
with the other business. Or, again, he may have been trying to fight
against the conviction that was being forced upon him, that there was
really something impossible and beastly about the old packet. Of course,
these are only suppositions.

And then, close upon this, there were further developments.

V

_The End of Williams_

As I have said, there was a lot of talk, among the crowd of us forrard,
about Tom's strange accident. None of the men knew that Williams and I
had seen it _happen_. Stubbins gave it as his opinion that Tom had been
sleepy, and missed the foot-rope. Tom, of course, would not have this by
any means. Yet, he had no one to appeal to; for, at that time, he was
just as ignorant as the rest, that we had seen the sail flap up over the
yard.

Stubbins insisted that it stood to reason it couldn't be the wind. There
wasn't any, he said; and the rest of the men agreed with him.

"Well," I said, "I don't know about all that. I'm a bit inclined to
think Tom's yarn is the truth."

"How do you make that hout?" Stubbins asked, unbelievingly. "There haint
nothin' like enough wind."

"What about the place on his forehead?" I inquired, in turn. "How are
you going to explain that?"

"I 'spect h