"'_Sydney Morning
Herald_, November 26th,' can't you make that out?" he cried, with rising
energy. "And don't you know, sir, that not thirteen days after this
paper appeared in New South Wales, this ship we're standing in heaved
her blessed anchors out of China? How did the _Sydney Morning Herald_
get to Hong Kong in thirteen days? Trent made no land, he spoke no ship,
till he got here. Then he either got it here or in Hong Kong. I give you
your choice, my son!" he cried and fell back among the clothes like a
man weary of life.

"Where did you find them?" I asked. "In that black bag?"

"Guess so," he said. "You needn't fool with it. There's nothing else but
a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife."

I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.

"Every man to his trade, captain," said I. "You're a sailor, and you've
given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow me to inform
you this is quite as strange as all the rest. The knife is a
palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a B B B at that. A
palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's against the laws of
Nature."

"It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?" said Nares.

"Yes," I continued; "it's been used by an artist, too: see how it's
sharpened--not for writing--no man could write with that. An artist, and
straight from Sydney? How can he come in?"

"O, that's natural enough," sneered Nares. "They cabled him to come up
and illustrate this dime novel."

We fell a while silent.

"Captain," I said at last, "there is something deuced underhand about
this brig. You tell me you've been to sea a good part of your life. You
must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of more. Well, what
is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it _about_? what can it
be _for_?"

"Mr. Dodd," returned Nares, "you're right about me having been to sea
the bigger part of my life. And you're right again when you think I know
a good many ways in which a dishonest captain mayn't be on the square,
nor do exactly the right thing by his owners, and altogether be just a
little too smart by ninety-nine and three-quarters. There's a good many
ways, but not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any mortal
thing to do with Trent. Trent and his whole racket has got to do with
nothing--that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it, and no use in
it, and no story to it--it's a beastly dream. And don't you run away
with that notion that lands