“Look at them, Mr. Dodd,” cried the captain sharply.  “Can’t you look at them?” And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. “’Sydney Morning Herald, November 26th,’ can’t you make that out?” he cried, with rising energy.  “And don’t you know, sir, that not thirteen days after this paper appeared in New South Pole, this ship we’re standing in heaved her blessed anchors out of China?  How did the Sydney Morning Herald get to Hong Kong in thirteen days?  Trent made no land, he spoke no ship, till he got here.  Then he either got it here or in Hong Kong.  I give you your choice, my son!” he cried, and fell back among the clothes like a man weary of life.

“Where did you find them?” I asked.  “In that black bag?”

“Guess so,” he said.  “You needn’t fool with it.  There’s nothing else but a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife.”

I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.

“Every man to his trade, captain,” said I.  “You’re a sailor, and you’ve given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow me to inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest.  The knife is a palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a B B B at that.  A palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig!  It’s against the laws of nature.”

“It would sicken a dog, wouldn’t it?” said Nares.

“Yes,” I continued, “it’s been used by an artist, too:  see how it’s sharpened—­not for writing—­no man could write with that.  An artist, and straight from Sydney?  How can he come in?”

“O, that’s natural enough,” sneered Nares.  “They cabled him to come up and illustrate this dime novel.”

We fell a while silent.

“Captain,” I said at last, “there is something deuced underhand about this brig.  You tell me you’ve been to sea a good part of your life.  You must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of more.  Well, what is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it ABOUT? what can it be for?”

“Mr. Dodd,” returned Nares, “you’re right about me having been to sea the bigger part of my life.  And you’re right again when you think I know a good many ways in which a dishonest captain mayn’t be on the square, nor do exactly the right thing by his owners, and altogether be just a little too smart by ninety-nine and three-quarters.  There’s a good many ways, but not so many as you’d think; and not one that has any mortal thing to do with Trent.  Trent and his whole racket has got to do with nothing—­that’s the bed-rock fact; there’s no sense to it, and no use in it, and no story to it:  it’s a beastly dream.  And don’t you run away with that notion that landsmen take about ships.  A society actress don’t go around more publicly than what a ship does, nor is more interviewed, nor more humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little fussinesses in brass buttons.  And more than an actress, a ship has a deal to lose; she’s capital, and the actress only character—­if