Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.

“What the devil’s this?” he whispered.

“Trent,” I suggested, with a beating heart.

“We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed,” said he.  “But I’ve got to know where I stand.”  In the shadow, his face looked conspicuously white, and his voice betrayed a strong excitement.  He took his boat’s whistle from his pocket.  “In case I might want to play a tune,” said he, grimly, and thrusting it between his teeth, advanced into the moonlit open; which we crossed with rapid steps, looking guiltily about us as we went.  Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we came up to it, offered convincing proof of long desertion.  She was an eighteen-foot whaleboat of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and thole-pins.  Two or three quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships, one of which must have been broached, and now stank horribly; and these, upon examination, proved to bear the same New Zealand brand as the beef on board the wreck.

“Well, here’s the boat,” said I; “here’s one of your difficulties cleared away.”

“H’m,” said he.  There was a little water in the bilge, and here he stooped and tasted it.

“Fresh,” he said.  “Only rain-water.”

“You don’t object to that?” I asked.

“No,” said he.

“Well, then, what ails you?” I cried.

“In plain United States, Mr. Dodd,” he returned, “a whaleboat, five ash sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork.”

“Or, in other words, the whole thing?” I commented.

“Well, it’s this way,” he condescended to explain.  “I’ve no use for a fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the business.  I don’t say the type’s not common in these waters; it’s as common as dirt; the traders carry them for surf-boats.  But the Flying Scud? a deep-water tramp, who was lime-juicing around between big ports, Calcutta and Rangoon and ’Frisco and the Canton River?  No, I don’t see it.”

We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke.  The captain stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing with the trailing painter, when a thought arrested him.  He hauled the line in hand over hand, and stared, and remained staring, at the end.

“Anything wrong with it?” I asked.

“Do you know, Mr. Dodd,” said he, in a queer voice, “this painter’s been cut?  A sailor always seizes a rope’s end, but this is sliced short off with the cold steel.  This won’t do at all for the men,” he added.  “Just stand by till I fix it up more natural.”

“Any guess what it all means?” I asked.

“Well, it means one thing,” said he.  “It means Trent was a liar.  I guess the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more picturesque than he gave out.”

Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah Creina; and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-bewildered by our late discoveries.

CHAPTER XIV.  THE CABIN OF THE “FLYING SCUD.”