Next, he unburdened his wrath for the inefficients who had
lost the foresail, and sympathized with the sail-makers for the extra
work thrown upon them. Then he asked permission to borrow one of my
books, and, clinging to my bunk, selected Buchner's _Force and Matter_
from my shelf, carefully wedging the empty space with the doubled
magazine I use for that purpose.

Still he was loth to depart, and, cudgelling his brains for a pretext, he
set up a rambling discourse on River Plate weather. And all the time I
kept wondering what was behind it all. At last it came.

"By the way, Mr. Pathurst," he remarked, "do you happen to remember how
many years ago Mr. Mellaire said it was that he was dismasted and
foundered off here?"

I caught his drift on the instant.

"Eight years ago, wasn't it?" I lied.

Mr. Pike let this sink in and slowly digested it, while the _Elsinore_
was guilty of three huge rolls down to port and back again.

"Now I wonder what ship was sunk off the Plate eight years ago?" he
communed, as if with himself. "I guess I'll have to ask Mr. Mellaire her
name. You can search me for all any I can recollect."

He thanked me with unwonted elaborateness for _Force and Matter_, of
which I knew he would never read a line, and felt his way to the door.
Here he hung on for a moment, as if struck by a new and most accidental
idea.

"Now it wasn't, by any chance, that he said eighteen years ago?" he
queried.

I shook my head.

"Eight years ago," I said. "That's the way I remember it, though why I
should remember it at all I don't know. But that is what he said," I
went on with increasing confidence. "Eight years ago. I am sure of it."

Mr. Pike looked at me ponderingly, and waited until the _Elsinore_ had
fairly righted for an instant ere he took his departure down the hall.

I think I have followed the working of his mind. I have long since
learned that his memory of ships, officers, cargoes, gales, and disasters
is remarkable. He is a veritable encyclopaedia of the sea. Also, it is
patent that he has equipped himself with Sidney Waltham's history. As
yet, he does not dream that Mr. Mellaire is Sidney Waltham, and he is
merely wondering if Mr. Mellaire was a ship-mate of Sidney Waltham
eighteen years ago in the ship lost off the Plate.

In the meantime, I shall never forgive Mr. Mellaire for this slip he has
made. He should have been more careful.

CHAPTER XXX

An abominable night!