et. Several small
birds--chaffinches, I think--perched in the rigging.

4.40 P.M.--While I was on deck this morning I heard a sudden explosion
from the direction of my cabin, and, hurrying down, found that I had
very nearly met with a serious accident. Goring was cleaning a revolver,
it seems, in his cabin, when one of the barrels which he thought was
unloaded went off. The ball passed through the side partition and
imbedded itself in the bulwarks in the exact place where my head usually
rests. I have been under fire too often to magnify trifles, but there is
no doubt that if I had been in the bunk it must have killed me. Goring,
poor fellow, did not know that I had gone on deck that day, and must
therefore have felt terribly frightened. I never saw such emotion in a
man's face as when, on rushing out of his cabin with the smoking pistol
in his hand, he met me face to face as I came down from deck. Of
course, he was profuse in his apologies, though I simply laughed at the
incident.

11 P.M.--A misfortune has occurred so unexpected and so horrible that
my little escape of the morning dwindles into insignificance. Mrs. Tibbs
and her child have disappeared--utterly and entirely disappeared. I can
hardly compose myself to write the sad details.

About half-past eight Tibbs rushed into my cabin with a very white face
and asked me if I had seen his wife. I answered that I had not. He then
ran wildly into the saloon and began groping about for any trace of her,
while I followed him, endeavouring vainly to persuade him that his fears
were ridiculous. We hunted over the ship for an hour and a half without
coming on any sign of the missing woman or child. Poor Tibbs lost
his voice completely from calling her name. Even the sailors, who are
generally stolid enough, were deeply affected by the sight of him as
he roamed bareheaded and dishevelled about the deck, searching with
feverish anxiety the most impossible places, and returning to them again
and again with a piteous pertinacity. The last time she was seen was
about seven o'clock, when she took Doddy on to the poop to give him a
breath of fresh air before putting him to bed. There was no one there
at the time except the black seaman at the wheel, who denies having seen
her at all. The whole affair is wrapped in mystery. My own theory
is that while Mrs. Tibbs was holding the child and standing near the
bulwarks it gave a spring and fell overboard, and that in her convulsive