d as a
turkey-cock--dash me if he didn't. A bad-tempered old bloke, I can tell
you. And a bad lot, too. Never mind. I couldn't hear what she was
saying to him, but she put force enough into it to shake her. It
seemed--it seemed, mind!--that he didn't want to go on board. Of course
it couldn't have been that. I know better. Well, she took him by the
arm, above the elbow, as if to lead him, or push him rather. I was
standing not quite ten feet off. Why should I have gone away? I was
anxious to get back on board as soon as they would let me. I didn't want
to overhear her blamed whispering either. But I couldn't stay there for
ever, so I made a move to get past them if I could. And that's how I
heard a few words. It was the old chap--something nasty about being
"under the heel" of somebody or other. Then he says, "I don't want this
sacrifice." What it meant I can't tell. It was a quarrel--of that I am
certain. She looks over her shoulder, and sees me pretty close to them.
I don't know what she found to say into his ear, but he gave way
suddenly. He looked round at me too, and they went up together so
quickly then that when I got on the quarter-deck I was only in time to
see the inner door of the passage close after them. Queer--eh? But if
it were only queerness one wouldn't mind. Some luggage in new trunks
came on board in the afternoon. We undocked at midnight. And may I be
hanged if I know who or what he was or is. I haven't been able to find
out. No, I don't know. He may have been anything. All I know is that
once, years ago when I went to see the Derby with a friend, I saw a pea-
and-thimble chap who looked just like that old mystery father out of a
cab."

All this the goggle-eyed mate had said in a resentful and melancholy
voice, with pauses, to the gentle murmur of the sea. It was for him a
bitter sort of pleasure to have a fresh pair of ears, a newcomer, to whom
he could repeat all these matters of grief and suspicion talked over
endlessly by the band of Captain Anthony's faithful subordinates. It was
evidently so refreshing to his worried spirit that it made him forget the
advisability of a little caution with a complete stranger. But really
with Mr. Powell there was no danger. Amused, at first, at these plaints,
he provoked them for fun. Afterwards, turning them over in his mind, he
became impressed, and as the impression grew stronger with the days his
resolution to keep it to him