There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred upon my feelings.  I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or any of his vanished gang; but the desertion and decay of this once habitable cabin struck me hard:  the death of man’s handiwork is melancholy like the death of man himself; and I was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of tragedy in my surroundings.

“This sickens me,” I said.  “Let’s go on deck and breathe.”

The captain nodded.  “It IS kind of lonely, isn’t it?” he said.  “But I can’t go up till I get the code signals.  I want to run up ‘Got Left’ or something, just to brighten up this island home.  Captain Trent hasn’t been here yet, but he’ll drop in before long; and it’ll cheer him up to see a signal on the brig.”

“Isn’t there some official expression we could use?” I asked, vastly taken by the fancy. “’Sold for the benefit of the underwriters:  for further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton, Montana Block, S.F.’”

“Well,” returned Nares, “I won’t say but what an old navy quartermaster might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to do it in and a pound of tobacco for himself.  But it’s above my register.  I must try something short and sweet:  KB, urgent signal, ‘Heave all aback’; or LM, urgent, ‘The berth you’re now in is not safe’; or what do you say to PQH?—­’Tell my owners the ship answers remarkably well.’”

“It’s premature,” I replied; “but it seems calculated to give pain to Trent.  PQH for me.”

The flags were found in Trent’s cabin, neatly stored behind a lettered grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following) returned on deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the dusk was coming.

“Here! don’t touch that, you fool!” shouted the captain to one of the hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but.  “That water’s rotten!”

“Beg pardon, sir,” replied the man.  “Tastes quite sweet.”

“Let me see,” returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it to his lips.  “Yes, it’s all right,” he said.  “Must have rotted and come sweet again.  Queer, isn’t it, Mr. Dodd?  Though I’ve known the same on a Cape Horner.”

There was something in his intonation that made me look him in the face; he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship, like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing testified to some suppressed excitement.

“You don’t believe what you’re saying!” I broke out.

“O, I don’t know but what I do!” he replied, laying a hand upon me soothingly.  “The thing’s very possible.  Only, I’m bothered about something else.”

And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and stepped himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated under the weight of the ensign overhead.  A minute later, the American colours, which we had brought in the boat, replaced the English red, and PQH was fluttering at the fore.