slap into her lap. A real old buck bilge rat; and after him the ship's cat. Well-I ask you-who wouldn't? She-I mean Miss Seton-came unstuck, and over she went into the soup-biff !'

And you after her, Charlie, my lad!' from a scoffer.

"I passed to the next group, edged in, and merged

666 And there she was as cool as a cucumber, surrounded by sharks.'

"I got no forrader here, for they kept on harping on sharks and cucumbers, and I felt that more succulent stuff awaited me elsewhere. It did. I inoculated myself unobtrusively into a very promising group, its members' eyes all on stalks, the jaws of some of the more emotional slightly slaverous. A lady was holding forth, a born narrator, recklessly lavish of grace notes and embroidery. She was giving a recitation rather than telling them all about it. I missed just a few of the opening bars, and came in at

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a real British sailor sort of man, such true blue eyes, bluff and hearty, with a sort of Berserk beard you know honey-coloured.' (No-I didn't know. Bluff and hearty eyes I could allow-but not eyes with a honey-coloured beard.) She continued, emphasising nearly every third word: This is what he told me, and he was obviously speaking the truth: "Lady," he said, "we'd bin

VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLVI.

Alf,' sez I, 'd'y 'ear anything?' 'No,' sez Alf. 'Listen,' sez I. Well, we stops lab'rin' at the oar and listens.

'There 'tis again,' sez I.

Where?' sez Alf. 'Out there,' sez I. After a bit Alf sez eager-like, 'I 'ear—a yim !' And so 'twas, lady-Greenland's Hicy Mountains aringin' like church bells acrost them watery wastes. Didn't 'arf make me want to cry. But I masters it and sings out, 'Give way, my hearties! lay down to it!' Ay

didn't we make her travel! Straight toward Greenland's Hicy we heads, quite disregardless of sharks and that. But 'twas thirsty work, what with the dangers we run and the 'eat and the anxiety and all. Presently we sights her, calm as calm a-settin' in her life-buoy singing among the sharks-stacks of 'em, lady, if you'll believe me. If I may say so, lady, that pore girlyoung lady, I should say-is a 'oly one, settin' there and yim-singing among all them perils. Well, I lifts her up in m'yarms-as light as a feather she was-and she looks up in my face so trustful-like, and she sez, Thank you, quartermaster.' Just that. I broke down arter that, ay, I did

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growed man and all-and so did Alf, wors'n me. We sets there crying like babies."'

"The actual recitation ended here that is to say, oratio recta ended and obliqua set in, with a spot or two of recta thrown in for effect. 'If I may say so,' continued the lady, that simple sailor is a religious man -deeply religious. He was so He was so touched by what he, poor fellow, called the yim. And he did look so parched, quite husky. He had that thirsty look in his eye-you know. I called to a passing steward, and ordered him to bring a lemon squash at once, with lots of ice in it. But the sailor, poor man, looked quite put out. He said how grateful he was, but added, "Not that, lady-not that. I never takes nothin', only stout in the Red Sea, lady, and ice sits cold to the stomach, pard'ning your presence, lady." I asked the dear fellow whether he was quite sure that fermented liquor was good for him during such a heat wave as we were having. He said he was perfectly certain that it was, even in the hottest latitoods." So I ordered him a small bottle of stout. I really didn't dare to let him have a big one. And he went away, that true heart, quite silent, without another word. Such a dear man, what I call a true British tar.'

fixture, almost as familiar to her passengers as Hibernia's buff-and-blue funnels. I warrant he had never pulled an oar in his life, or been afloat probably in any craft less frail than an ocean-going ship. A man of strength, our butcher, a mingler of strong drink, mighty to drink it, and quite unashamed in asking for it. A small bottle of stout to the likes of him! Oh, the glorious irony of it! Oh, the insult ! I was now so full of hiccoughy pains owing to suppressed mirth that I had to mount to the deserted boat-deck, and let it gush from me into the night.

"I drifted to yet another group. Here they had got hold of me at last. I had been thinking it was about time. Some one was saying, 'Oh, I believe it's all nonsense. Two people could never have happened to fall overboard at the same time.' 'Yes, but,' said another, one of them might have jumped in after the other, mightn't he?' 'I'll give you two reasons why not,' said the first. First, he couldn't have gone overboard without some one seeing him, could he? And next, still less could have come alongside in an open boat under the eyes of hundreds of us without being noticed.'

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"And yet, he was in that open boat.'

"This from me in the measured grave tones of one who knew. At once I became the focal point. 'No,' I said,

'don't ask me. I know nothing.' This touched that chord of receptivity which in the right atmosphere twangs so readily in the average human breast, and ensures unquestioning belief in the most palpable guff. My audience were all certain now that I knew something, if not everything, and they were ready to gorge it. 'No,' I said, waving them off, yet luring them on. 'Don't ask me. All I say is that we shall never know who the man was, and (I added) reason too!' I had hit on the exact wave length, tuned in, my three-valve set had attained perfect receptivity, and, I felt sure, would reproduce as perfectly. I paused here. Then, 'Mind you, what I say is only my belief, my private personal belief, but I can add two and two as well as another, and this is what it seems to me to come to. The man picked up with Miss Seton was one of the ship's people. He was found safe and snug inside the buoy, she, outside-among the sharks. Naturally, the ship has her good name to keep up. Naturally, it'll be all hushed up. You wait and see. NoI don't know who he was. told you I knew nothing.'

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I

No one among my audience thought of asking how I had come by the figures which had made up my simple sum. No one found anything odd in my inference that a life-buoy was a sort of water-tight-sharkproof buoy in which a man

might sit immune from danger. But one of the brighter lads asked, 'But how about his coming alongside in that open boat and us all looking down into it and not spotting him?' I crushed this worm that had ventured to turn and query my statements. Consider a moment,' I said. 'You looked down into an open boat certainly. But what could you see ? Whom could you recognise? Nobody. It was pitch dark down there. Now what about it, eh?' I strode away with the superior air of one who can add up two and two, but finds that others can't.

I

"I had sown my libellous seed. I felt that during the night it would germinate, that next day it would have 'taken hold,' as gardeners say. laid me down in my chosen airy spot on deck, and fell asleep to the thud of the propellers which had swished so close past my head such a short while ago.

"I was right. Next day the seed had taken hold, firm hold, of the minds of all. It was an established fact now that the boat had picked up a man with Miss Seton. But it was a mystery as to who that man was. Clearly the ship was making a hush-hush matter of it. No one else would-and why? Because there was something discreditable to hide. And why should the ship want to hide it? Because one of her own people had not come out of it too well. That was the simple logic of it. No getting out of

that. And so all the world wondered. It was a very idle world, glad to have something to wonder at. It walked the deck or lay in its chair and wondered and cogitated.

"At dinner that night the Skipper made an effort to dispel the mystery. He may have succeeded, but my seed had taken a good hold. And it didn't much matter, for with our arrival in the Canal and the departure of prickly heat, we had other things to think about. But that night the Old Man rose from his chair and addressed us as follows:

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With reference to last night's happenings, I'm glad to tell you all that Miss Seton is going on as well as can be expected. She hasn't, of course, been worried with questions, but she says that she remembers nothing of what happened. That being so, we are left in the dark as to who the man was who went overboard after her, gave her a life-buoy and, in short, saved her life. I can, however, assure you that the rumour which has come to my ears as to that man being one of the ship's company is untrue. I have made the most careful inquiries, and I can assure everyone that there's nothing in it. No, the man who went overboard is here in this saloon. He hears my words and I see him, though I don't know which of you he is.

He did a manly thing. He'd do a manlier, if I may say so, if he'd own up to it.

Mrs Seton is very anxious to thank him, and so are we all. Now!' He looked round, did the old noodle, as if he really expected some one to be still manlier and get up and say, 'I'm the man.' There was a dead silence. Then some one jumped up and began 'For he's a jolly good fellow.' Then every one else jumped up and joined in. And there was I roaring louder than any one that I was a jolly good fellow ! After that a would-be horsey man, who had probably attended a selling lottery once, sang out, Fifty pounds in the lottery. Great Unknown for sale! Any offers, gentlemen? No advance ? Well, then, going, going, gone! Great Unknown goes for £50. Owner taking nothing.' That finished it.

We reached Marseilles. Most of the passengers cleared off here. The Setons were to have gone, but Miss Seton, though up and about, was not fit for the railway journey. I was also to have gone, but changed my mind at the last moment. I usually hate the Bay and the up-Channel voyage, but I seemed to fancy both this time.

"We were quite a reduced crowd on board now, and I saw a good deal of the Setons. One day Miss Seton recurred to that night in the Red Sea. She told me that it was all a closed book to her still, and that she was like a person who had had a dream and couldn't