st as I saw Bob Hampton sink down on the deck
holding his head.

Directly after, as Mr Frewen stood swaying to and fro, the mate rushed
to where the cook and the two men stood by the galley-door.

The two sailors shrank away to right and left, while Mr Brymer seized
the cook and dragged him away, forcing him down upon his knees, holding
him by the collar with one hand, and swaying to and fro as he said
thickly--

"You dog, you drugged that dish you sent in to dinner!"

"No, sir--'pon my word, sir--I swear, sir!" shrieked the poor fellow.

"You treacherous hound, you've poisoned us!" stammered out the mate.

"I swear I haven't, Mr Brymer, sir. Don't, sir--that pistol, sir--
pray, sir--indeed, indeed, I haven't!"

Mr Brymer was shaking the pistol about threateningly, as he rocked to
and fro over the cook, who as he knelt clasped his hands in agony, and I
heard him say something very indistinctly, for he was sobbing about his
wife and child.

Then there was a loud bang as the pistol fell, and directly after I saw
Mr Brymer glide down as it were on to the deck, and roll over toward
where Mr Frewen already lay--though I had not seen him fall--with his
arms now folded, and his face upon them as if he were asleep.

And still it didn't seem to trouble me in the least. Even when Mr
Brymer was gesticulating with his pistol, it did not alarm me, for it
was all something interesting going on before me just as if it were part
of a dream which would all dissolve away directly, and then I should
wake up and think of it no more.

I think my eyes must have been closing then, but they opened widely
again, and at one glance I saw my companions perfectly motionless from
where I sat back against the bulwark, and heard Mr Preddle snoring
heavily by my side. For the cook exclaimed passionately--

"I swear, if it was the last word I had to titter, I've done nothing! I
never drugged nobody's food!"

"All right, matey," said the sailor I had seen talking to the steersman;
"it warn't you--it was me."

"You?" cried the cook. "You've poisoned them!"

"Not I, my lad," said the man, laughing; and every word he uttered rang
in my ears as if it was being shouted by some tremendous voice, for my
senses were at that moment abnormally clear. "Not I, my lad. I was up
yonder, when I saw Brymer and the rest of 'em get together to have what
old Frenchy calls a parley, and they hadn't been there long, leaving me
wondering what game was