gent of that name,
or something like it, on board: but if so, he was amongst those in the
other boat."

"I should like to see this man Mackay--or Smith," said Percival.

The berth in which the steerage passenger lay was pointed out to him: he
looked at the face upon the pillow, and shook his head. A rough,
reddened, blistered face it was, with dirt grained into the pores and
matting the hair and beard: not in the least like the countenance of the
man whom he had come to seek.

"We may fall in with the other boat," suggested the officer.

But though the steamer went out of her course in search of it, and a
careful watch was kept throughout the day and night, the other boat
could not be seen.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WRECKED.

Percival cultivated acquaintance with the two sailors, and tried to
obtain from them some description of the passengers on board the
_Falcon_. But description was not their forte. He gained nothing but a
clumsy mass of separate facts concerning passengers and crew, which
assisted him little in forming an opinion as to whether Brian Luttrell
had, or had not, been on board. He was inclined to think--not.

"But he seemed to have a slippery habit of turning up in odd places
where you don't in the least expect to find him," soliloquised Percival
over a cigar. "Why couldn't he have stayed comfortably dead in that
glacier? Or why did the brain fever not carry him off? He has as many
lives as a cat. He, drowned or burnt when the _Falcon_ was on fire? Not
a bit of it. I'll believe in Mr. Brian Luttrell's death when I have seen
him screwed into his coffin, followed him to the grave, ordered a
headstone, and written his epitaph. And even then, I should feel that
there was no knowing whether he had not buried himself under false
pretences, and was, in reality, enjoying life at the Antipodes. I don't
know anybody else who can be, 'like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once.'
I shall nail him to one _alias_ for the future, if I catch him. But
there seems very little chance of my catching him at all. I've come on a
wild-goose chase, and can't expect to succeed."

This mood of comparative depression did not last long. Percival felt
certain that the other boat would be overtaken, or that Brian would be
found to have sailed in another ship. He could not reconcile himself to
any idea of returning to Elizabeth with his task half done.

They were nearing the Equator, and the heat of the weather was great. It
w