ery. Without that, though I might have gone ahead and done as well,
it would scarce have been with ardour; and what inspired me that night
with an impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the wreck, was the
hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a hundred questions,
and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in the exchange, and why
Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in the Mission Street lodging-house.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS

I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to unhappiness that I
opened them again next morning, to a confused sense of some calamity
still inarticulate, and to the consciousness of jaded limbs and of a
swimming head. I must have lain for some time inert and stupidly
miserable before I became aware of a reiterated knocking at the door;
with which discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed
channels, and I remembered the sale and the wreck, and Goddedaal and
Nares, and Johnson and Black Tom, and the troubles of yesterday and the
manifold engagements of the day that was to come. The thought thrilled
me like a trumpet in the hour of battle. In a moment I had leaped from
bed, crossed the office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance of sleep on
the convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night gear, to
receive our visitors.

Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling. From a little behind, with
his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow and a cigar glowing between
his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged our previous acquaintance with a
succinct nod. Behind him again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of
sailors, the new crew of the _Norah Creina_, stood polishing the wall
with back and elbow. These I left without to their reflections. But our
two officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by the
shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness. He sat up, all abroad
for the moment, and stared on the new captain.

"Jim," said I, "this is Captain Nares. Captain, Mr. Pinkerton."

Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought he held
us both under a watchful scrutiny.

"O!" says Jim, "this is Captain Nares, is it? Good-morning, Captain
Nares. Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir. I know you
well by reputation."

Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was scarce a
welcome speech. At least, Nares received it with a grunt.

"Well, captain," Jim continue